Mokady, Moshe, Painter. b. 1902, Tarnow, Poland. Immigrated to Isrel on 1920.
Mokady studied art in Vienna and Zurich even prior to his immigration. His paintings of the 1920s already displayed such modernist characteristics as sharp perspective distortion and flat figures. The effect of the glaring local light was rendered by contrasting blue and russet hues. In 1927 Mokady left for Paris. During his prolonged stay there, he was exposed to the expressionist trend and became acquainted with the Jewish School of Paris artists. Under this influence he adopted a dark palette in paintings conveying a melancholy mood. In the 1930s and 1940s, Mokady came closer to abstraction: the figures were schematically delineated and the landscapes composed exclusively by a juxtaposition of color planes. The transition to non-representational painting occurred gradually in Mokady's work. The formal reduction of the object climaxed in its incorporation by means of broad and intense brush strokes in a shock of colors, forming an expressionistic-abstract composition. In the l96Os his paintings, still abstract, became airier, featuring bright colors applied on the canvas in soft, transparent layers. Teaching: Art and music, Haifa; 1952-65 Director of Avni Institute, Tel Aviv. Prizes: 1937, 1942, 1950-51 Dizengoff Prize. 1949 First art adviser to Ministry of Education and Culture. 1927-30 Lived in Paris. A founder of the Artists’ Village, Ein Hod, where he lived from 1965 until his death in 1975.
