“Moshe Kupferman: “First Steps on the Road”(Paintings 1958-1968)

This is the first in a series of exhibitions that will be held twice a year by the Moshe Kupferman non-profit Association, to present various aspects of his work, some of which are less known.

In the exhibition “Moshe Kupferman: At The Beginning of the Road”, more than thirty paintings from the legacy are on show. The earliest, “Acco” made in 1958, is a farewell to figuration. A year later Kupferman painted minimal monochromes, which were presented in his first one-man exhibition at the Chemerinski Gallery in Tel Aviv in 1960. These works were succeeded by expressive paintings in which Kupferman developed the unique, distinctive characteristics of his art – even before perplexity emerged as to its meanings. All these works are untitled, sometimes undated, as if they are still unaware of the Kupferman concept of time – present, past, and accumulative time.

Most of these paintings have never been exhibited, including two of the three early large ones he created, in contrast to the very small, almost miniature “etudes”, whose compositions are the result of early experimentation of moving the arm across the canvas surface as a “total gesture”.

On the furthest wall of the gallery, three paintings mark “the end of the road”: three works created in Spring 2003, one of which is the last painting Kupferman signed, and another is an unfinished one left on the stand at the Studio.

                                                                                                            Y.F.

                                                                                                            October 2003