Lot 32

Private collection, Melbourne

Yosl Bergner fled Poland in 1937 and arrived in Melbourne aged 17. In Australia he established his artistic practice and went on to become an important proponent of the social realist group of painters during the 1940s. He engaged with many of the local artists who now epitomise modern Australian art including John Perceval, Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Albert Tucker. In 1948 he left Australia and eventually settled in Israel. At the age of 90, after establishing a successful career spanning multiple decades in the mediums of painting and drawing, Bergner turned his artistic focus to sculpture. In 2014 he demonstrated his new-found mastery of sculpture with an exhibition of unique pieces based on his paintings from the 1960s at Leonard Joel in South Yarra. Musicians were often the subjects of Bergner's work and the violinist found in Lot 32 is a recurring motif from many of his earlier paintings and drawings.

Madeleine Norton | Decorative Arts and Fine Art Specialist

© Yosl Bergner/Copyright Agency, 2021.