- Born
- Died
- Birth nameAvigdor Arikha
- Avigdor Arikha was born on April 28, 1929 in Radauti, Romania. He is known for Waiting for Beckett (1993), Omnibus (1967) and Saturday Review (1986). He was married to Anne Atik. He died on April 29, 2010 in Paris, France.
- SpouseAnne Atik(? - April 29, 2010) (his death, 2 children)
- He had homes in Paris, France and Jerusalem, Israel.
- He is survived by his wife, Anne Atik; two daughters-Alba Smail, and Noga Simonetta and two grandchildren.
- He was awarded the Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 2005 by the French government for his services to art.
- His works are in the National Portrait Gallery, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- He was born into a German-speaking Jewish family. When he was 12, he and his family were deported to a Ukrainian concentration camp. He coped with this grim existence by drawing on scraps of paper. His sketches got the attention of the International Red Cross, and he was released from the camp with a group of children. He was taken to live on a kibbutz in Palestine.
- Renouncing abstract-ism in the 1960s: People who think there is anything new in the arts are idiots. in my early 30s I was quite successful as an abstractionist. But I started painting my own set of forms over and over again. Finally it repulsed me.
- On post-abstract naturalism: after my shock at the stupidity of an art critic who wrote about my very nice impressionist work.
- In 1986: Economy of means is, in fact, the threshold of concentration, when I draw and paint, the essential thing is not to know what I do, or else I cannot come to what I see.
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