Beloosesky Gallery is interested in purchasing paintings and drawings by Shalom of Safed.
Please call (917) 749-4557 or email us at info@beloosesky.com
Shalom Moskovitz (1896-1980) known as Shalom of Safed began to paint relatively late, at the age of 55, while under the influence of the famous Israeli artist Yosi Bergner.
Shalom Moskovitz's great grandparents came to Safed from Eastern Europe in the eighteenth century and although he moved to Australia for a year, when the Jews were exiled to Constantinople and Damascus during World War I, Moskovitz lived in the picturesque city of Safed on the Galilee hills for most of his life. In Safed, the birthplace of Jewish mysticism and kabbalah, Moskovitz, who was a member of the Hassidic sect, was heir to a rich tradition.
For more than half a century he worked at various crafts, mainly as a watchmaker, but also as a stonemason and silversmith. Shalom of Safed led a quiet and religious life and came across painting accidentally. Since then this self-taught artist naïve artist has achieved an international reputation.
While belonging to Hasidism, he painted subjects close to his heart, the events of Jewish history, as narrated in the Old Testament and elaborated in the Talmud and other books. Shalom of Safed considered himself a "historical writer" rather than an artist, retelling the stories from Genesis and Exodus. He inserted scriptural verses and other legends to ensure clarity. His works often "read" like Hebrew with movement and sequence running from right to left, from top to bottom. Shalom had claimed that he did not work from his imagination, yet there is humor as well as imagination in his vivid colors and rearrangement of elements of his Bible stories.
Shalom of Safed had many exhibitions around the world, among them at the Jewish Museum (New York), the Renaissance Society (Chicago), the Israel Museum (Jerusalem), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam).
Shalom of Safed’s artworks are included in the collections of the Museums of Modern Art in Paris and New York, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Modern Museum in Stockholm and the Jewish Museum in New York.
Shalom of Safed died in 1980.