Moshe Castel

Art Brokerage: Moshe Castel Israeli Artist: b. 1909-1991. Moshe Elazar Castel was born in Jerusalem, Ottoman Palestine, in 1909, to Rabbi Yehuda Castel and his wife Rachel. The family was descended from Spanish Jews from Castile who immigrated to the Holy Land after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Castel attended his father's school until the age of 13. He went on to study at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, where he was encouraged by his teacher to study in Paris, furthering his art education at the Académie Julian and école du Louvre in Paris. He was greatly influenced by European masters Rembrandt, Velázquez, Delacroix and Courbet, after spending his days copying their works hanging in the Louvre. Castel returned to Palestine at the onset of WWII. The subject of Castel's early paintings were scenes of Sephardic Jews in the Holy Land. In 1947, Castel helped to found the New Horizons (Ofakim Hadashim) group, together with Yosef Zaritsky, Yehezkel Streichman, Marcel Janco and others. During the 1950s, his artwork changed style reflecting his inspiration from ancient relief paintings depicting predecessors of the Jewish people. These paintings were surrounded by ancient ruins of basalt stone blocks, which later on became the foundation for his unique artistic technique. Listings wanted.