Missa Dura: The Knight, Crystal Night, House No. 5

Mordecai Ardon was an Israeli painter and printmaker whose expressive abstractions emerged from figurative roots in interwar Europe. Born in Poland in 1896, he immigrated to Palestine in 1933 and became a central figure in the development of modern Israeli art, teaching at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem for decades. His work combined elements of Constructivism and Surrealism with a distinctly Middle Eastern sensibility, employing bold color and gestural mark-making to explore themes of memory, spirituality, and place. He remained a dominant artistic presence throughout the twentieth century.

Tuchów, Poland