In Their Own Words-Interview with Artist Itshak Holtz

YATED NE'EMAN
By Menucha Levin

"Tradition" (1966). Oil on canvas, 61 x 51 cm, signed 'I. Holtz' lower right (recto); titled, signed, located 'New York,' and dated (verso); Provenance: Private Collection, New Jersey

NEW YORK---I was born in 1925 in a small town called Skiernewice, near Warsaw in Poland. My father, who was artistic, was a hat-maker and a furrier. I showed an early talent for art from the age of three by drawing with chalk on the sidewalk. I studied at the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts for two years, from 1945 to 1947. I experimented with abstract art for a while, but then resumed painting Jewish figures and street scenes. I feel my artwork is strongly connected to my beliefs: “You have to live that religious life to fully capture it on canvas.” People even come from America to Eretz Yisroel to buy my art. [link]