Mordecai Ardon

Mordecai Ardon (Hebrew: מרדכי ארדון‎‎, July 13, 1896 – June 18, 1992) was an Israeli painter.

Girl, 1950

Stained glass windows, National Library of Israel, Jerusalem

Ardon was born Max Bronstein in 1896 in Tuchów, Galicia (then Austria-Hungary, now Poland). In 1933 he emigrated to Jerusalem in Mandate Palestine. He was granted Palestinian citizenship in 1936 and changed his name to Mordecai Ardon.

He participated in the Venice Biennale of 1968.

Beginning in the 1950s Ardon adopted a complex system of symbolic images in his paintings, taken from the Jewish Mystical tradition (Kabbalah), from the Bible and from a tangible reality. In his painting "Gates of Light", for example, he expressed "the inner mystery and timelessness of the landscape." His work seeks to impart a cosmic dimension to the present, linking it to antiquity and mystery. The same approach can be found in "At the Gates of Jerusalem" (1967), which shows the attempt to "convey his feelings about the cosmic significance of Israel’s return to the Old City of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War". "Bird near a yellow wall" (1950) demonstrates his simplistic involvement with the Holocaust, a subject to which he was one of the few Israeli artists to devote a phase of his work, at that time.

As a teacher and director of the "New Bezalel", Ardon conveyed his sense of social involvement, his tendency towards Jewish mysticism and local mythology, and the combination of personal national symbols with reality-always stressing masterful technique. Pupils such as Avigdor Arikha, Yehuda Bacon, Naftali Bezem, Shraga Weil and Shmuel Boneh absorbed these influences and integrated them into their later work.

Ardon was seen as the father of the regional approach in Israeli art.

One of his most famous creations are the "Ardon Windows" (1980–1984), a set of large stained-glass windows displayed prominently in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, incorporating visual elements from the Kabbalah.

Ardon died in Jerusalem in 1992.

In 2014 his painting "The Awakening" (1969) was sold at Sotheby's for $821,000.

In 2006 his painting "The Woodpecker of Time" (1963) was sold at Christie's for $643,200.

• 1920-25 Bauhaus School, Weimar, Germany, with Itten, Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger
• 1926 Studied with Max Doerner

• 1929 Kunstschule Itten, Berlin
• 1935 Seminar, Bet Hakerem, Jerusalem
• 1935-52 Bezalel, Jerusalem
• 1940-52 Bezalel, Jerusalem, Director
• 1952-63 Ministry of Education and Culture, Jerusalem, Supervisor and Art Advisor

• 1954 Unesco Prize
• 1963, Ardon was awarded the Israel Prize, in painting.
• 1974, he received the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award.
• 1974 Doctor of Honor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 1988 Boris Schatz Prize
• 1992 Isracard Prize, Tel Aviv Museum

• "Israel Prize recipients in 1963 (in Hebrew)". Israel Prize Official Site. Archived from the original on 14 July 2010. 
• "Recipients of Yakir Yerushalayim award (in Hebrew)".  City of Jerusalem official website

• 1984 Stained glass window, National Library of Israel, Givat Ram, Jerusalem