Less-known works by Yakov Averbukh

Abstract

The article reveals the less-known aspects of the creative activity of Yakov Averbukh (1922–1998). An artist of distinctive gift and plastic culture, he was trained as a professional artist in royal Romania, perfected his skills in Soviet Moldova and, during the latter period, worked in Israel, often using his father’s theatrical pseudonym — Ash. In the 1950s – 1970s he presented his works at national and foreign exhibitions, being recognized as a book designer, illustrator, and author of posters and linocuts. Nevertheless, he hadn’t exhibited and almost never displayed his chamber works — oil sketches, watercolours and pastels, marked by witticism and palette freshness, which was a rare phenomenon in the art of Moldavia in the first post-war decades. These works with simple motifs — the countryside of Chisinau, Moldovan villages, and the banks of the Nistru River ─ recreate the atmosphere of everyday life of bygone years and convey the unpretentiousness of emotions of a refined colourist. For many years, they were unknown in the cultural milieu.

Yakov Averbukh's versatile artistic work includes medallic art, monumental ceramics panels and interior decorations with murals and wood carvings. Yet his creativity is not covered in its entirety. The monographic album “Yakov Averbukh Ash = Yakov Averbukh”, which was published in Chisinau in 2022 on the occasion of the centenary of the artist's birth, attempts to fill the gap in the study of the artist's easel works. The launch of the book, which includes a significant number of reproductions of aesthetically important and previously unknown works, took place in Tel Aviv (at the Mission of the Republic of Moldova in Israel) and in Chisinau (at the National Art Museum of Moldova). Nonetheless, the publication's limited print run is accessible to a small number of readers. The author hopes that the selected works of easel graphics and paintings by Yakov Averbukh illustrating this article will attract the attention of experts and the evaluation of the artist's creative achievements will be commissioned into wider art studies.