ART NEWS

by: Hagai Hacohen

Alexander Bogen and his legacy will be reexamined in court following an appeal by his granddaughter, Tali Bogen.

An important Jewish painter often remembered in the context of his personal history as a partisan artist during the Holocaust, Bogen left a will that testified to his two wishes: That works be sold as needed to secure the financial interests of his surviving family members and that a solution would be found to keep the works together and present them to the public.

His granddaughter argues that this second element of the will was not respected and is appealing to the High Court.

In a radio interview she gave alongside curator Galia Bar Or to Goel Pinto, Bogen said she was able to secure and catalog two thousand paintings.

Bar Or explained that in a land that is half desert which is well-suited to preserve artwork, it is not beyond the ability of the state to create a national body to preserve the material heritage of Israeli art.

Art expert Nirit Shalev Khalifa wrote to the court that she was surprised to learn of a request that museums should first approach them and then they will offer the museum artwork.

“Such things do not happen in reality,” she informed the court, adding that whoever wrote this has no understanding of the art world.

Museums are interested in a few pieces that stand in relation to their goal as an art or a Holocaust museum, nobody will spend millions to create a wing for just one artist without a very powerful patron backing this act, she argued.

Shalev Khalifa lauded Bogen for her passion to promote the work of her late grandfather and warmly endorsed handing over the entire estate to her non-profit.

The engine behind the formation of Bogen’s Foundation for Partisan Arts, Bogen seems eager to salvage and promote the artistic merit of her grandfather in a country famous for neglecting its artistic treasures.

The current manager of the estate sent Pinto a written response in which he argued the radio is not the best place to discuss this issue and that he will state his case in court.

This is the third time Bogen has turned to the court for aid against the manager of the estate.

In her article Bogen and other Jewish artists who worked during the Holocaust, Polish art scholar Magdalena Tanowska included these words by the late Bogen: “I am an artist, I will use this term, broken in half. I went out of the hell of darkness into the light of the sun. Here in Israel, I was reborn. I breathe with its light, the sun and the air. They say that I’m a colorist. Yes. Because I sing all my songs with colors.”

as published at:

https://www.jpost.com/must/article-733530