Lea Nikel
{{Short description|Israeli artist}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Lea Nikel
| image = Lea Nikel.jpg
| image_size = 180px
| caption = Photograph of Lea Nikel, 1979
Photographer: Stanley I. Batkin
| birth_date = December 6, 1918
| birth_place = Zhitomir, Ukraine
| death_date = {{death-date and age|10 September 2005|6 December 1918}}
| death_place =
| nationality = Israeli, Jewish
| known_for = Painting
| training =
| movement = Israeli art
| notable_works =
| patrons =
| awards =
}}
Lea Nikel ({{langx|he|לאה ניקל}}; born 1918, died 2005) was an Israeli abstract artist.{{cite news |last=Gilerman |first=Dana |date=13 September 2007 |url=http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-birth-of-a-new-generation-1.229344 |title=The birth of a new generation |work=Haaretz |accessdate=22 January 2014}}
Biography
Lea Nikel (Lea Nikelsberg) was born in Zhitomir, Ukraine, on December 6, 1918.{{cite web |title=Nikel, Lea |url=https://www.degruyter.com/database/AKL/entry/_40290526/html |website=De Gruyter |access-date=22 April 2023 |language=en}} Her family immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1920. She had one sister, Sara (Bock), who was born in 1926. She began studying with painter Chaim Gliksberg in Tel Aviv in 1935, later studying with Yechezkel Streichman and Avigdor Stematsky. From 1961 to 1977, Nikel lived in Greenwich Village (one year), Rome (three years) and New York (four years), before returning to Israel in 1977. She was married to Sam Leiman and had one daughter, Ziva Hanan. She lived in Moshav Kidron.{{cite news |author=Ken Johnson |date=1 October 2005 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/arts/design/01nikel.html |title=Lea Nikel, Abstract Painter and One of Israel's Top Artists, Dies at 86 |newspaper=The New York Times |accessdate=22 January 2014}}
Artistic career
Nikel held her first solo exhibition in 1954 at the Chemerinsky Art Gallery in Tel Aviv{{cite web |title=Lea Nikel |url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/nikel-lea |website=Jewish Women's Archive |access-date=22 April 2023 |language=en}} and her first solo show in Paris at Galerie Colette Allendy in 1957. She took part in numerous international group exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1964. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art organized a retrospective exhibition of her paintings in 1995.{{cite web |title=Lea Nikel |url=https://awarewomenartists.com/en/artiste/lea-nikel/ |website=AWARE Women artists / Femmes artistes |access-date=22 April 2023}} Nikel continued to paint until just a few days before her death on September 10, 2005.
In 2023 her work was included in the exhibition Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-1970 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.{{cite web |title=Action, Gesture, Paint |url=https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/action-gesture-paint-women-and-global-abstraction-1940-70/ |website=Whitechapel Gallery |access-date=22 April 2023 |language=en}}
Artistic style
Nikel's style was a form of expressionistic abstraction sometimes called lyrical abstraction. She painted with a brusque, generous touch and favored high-keyed colors. She was known for buoyant compositions consisting of rough-edged blocks of color and scribbly, calligraphic lines that together conveyed a sense of imaginative excitement and urgent sensuousness.
Awards
- In 1972, she was awarded the Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art from the Israel Museum.{{cite web |title=Lea Nikel |url=https://www.imj.org.il/en/collections/470010-0 |website=Israel Museum |access-date=22 April 2023}}
- In 1982, Nikel was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Painting.{{cite web|url=http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Hebrew/_MultimediaServer/Documents/12516742.pdf |title=List of Dizengoff Prize laureates |publisher=Tel Aviv Municipality |language=Hebrew |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071217141815/http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Hebrew/_MultimediaServer/Documents/12516742.pdf |archivedate=December 17, 2007 }}
- In 1985, she was awarded a medal from the UNESCO workshop on experimental activities in Nice, France.
- In 1987, she won the Gamzo Award.
- In 1995, she was awarded the Israel Prize, for painting.{{Cite web|title=Israel Prize Official Site - Recipients in 1995 (in Hebrew) |url=http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/TashnagTashsab/TASNAG_TASNAT_Rikuz.htm?DictionaryKey=Tashnah |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081227153908/http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/TashnagTashsab/TASNAG_TASNAT_Rikuz.htm?DictionaryKey=Tashnah |archivedate=2008-12-27 }}
- In 1997, she was made a Chevalier of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture.
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web |url=http://www.engel-art.co.il/artists.php?act=show&id=1062 |title=Lea Nikel |publisher=Engel Gallery |access-date=2014-01-23 |archive-date=2022-03-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331034121/http://www.engel-art.co.il/artists.php?act=show&id=1062 |url-status=dead }}
- {{cite web |url=https://www.harelart.com/lea-nikel |title=Lea Nikel |publisher=Har-El Printers & Publishers |access-date=2018-12-17 |archive-date=2020-10-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001173517/https://www.harelart.com/lea-nikel |url-status=dead }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nikel, Lea}}
Category:Jewish Israeli artists
Category:Jews from Mandatory Palestine
Category:Israeli contemporary artists
Category:Israel Prize in painting recipients
Category:Israel Prize women recipients
Category:Sandberg Prize recipients
Category:20th-century Israeli painters
Category:21st-century Israeli painters
Category:Soviet emigrants to Mandatory Palestine