Susan Harding Merancy

Working in both pastels and oils, Susan Harding Merancy is both a plein air painter, who paints the landscapes of the Cambridge Valley in upstate New York, and, when the weather keeps her in her studio, a painter of still lifes.

The recent direction of her paintings has moved towards the impression of place and the objects that naturally appear within that space. Ms. Merancy understands and appreciates the confines of still life painting, which are usually constructions of the artist's hand. She also enjoys the world outside her studio and her love of animals and anatomy has introduced itself in her recent paintings of cows. She inds much contentment in recording the land and the animals that exist in and around her home in the Cambridge Valley.

Roberta Meyerson

ROBERTA MEYERSON
1938 - 2009

Roberta Meyerson’s work reflects her life-long interest in pattern, texture and narrative expressed through the painting of portraits even though her formal education in the arts was in New York City during the dominance of the abstract expressionists. During that time she studied with Raphael Soyer, Jules Olitsky, Philip Guston, Ad Rheinhardt and James Ernst. Despite her study of abstract expressionism, Meyerson was unable to resist the lure of the narrative in her own work.

For Meyerson the narrative and the aesthetic were one and the challenge of making them work together yielded the art. Her portraits of individuals are mostly, but not exclusively, of women. To portray their look, attitude, manner or feelings, Meyerson affixed to her canvas a variety of materials such as fabric, notions, jewelry and other found objects to create a surface upon which she painted, using acrylics, oils and oil sticks. When her subject matter went beyond the individual portrait, Meyerson’s work was frequently peopled with many individuals - a crowd interacting on Queens Boulevard, a street fair in Manhattan, a tag sale in upstate New York, where she lived for the last years of her life, on the streets or in the parks of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, in her own home or in her imagination.

The people in her paintings are derived from both direct observation and her memories formed from a lifetime of people watching. Meyerson liked the people in her paintings and felt empathy for them as they went about their daily activities. All of them are informed in some way by her own life experiences.
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Avri Ohana

Born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1939, Avri Ohana emigrated to Israel at the age of thirteen. Kibbutz educated, he later went on to study painting and sculpture in Israel’s major art schools under such prominent artists as European Dadaist, Marcel Janco, and the Director of the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem, Dan Hoffner. Ohana also attended the Oranim Art School and culminated his formal studies with a teaching certificate in art from the Ministry of Education in Tel Aviv. He then taught art in Israel and spent six months in Paris working under Jacob Agam before moving to the United States.

Ohana has done set design for the Haifa Theater in Israel and the Grand Opera in San Francisco, graphic design for ABC Television, and operated and taught his own art school in San Bernardino, California. He is a member of the Ein Hod Artists’ Village in Israel, and has participated in one-man and group shows in major cities in Israel, Europe and the United States.

Ohana’s works are virtual wonderlands of rich, ripe, multicolored “prime” paintings that consist of paintings-within-paintings. Vistas open up within vistas, while deceptively simple interiors disclose a multitude of other subjects. There is a strong sense of nature in Ohana’s works and an expression of freshness, open spaces, and far horizons of the outdoors. His works are an orchestration of the old with the new, the primitive with the sophisticated, and the ordinary with the fantastic. They are treats for the eye, the senses, and the imagination and will take you to places you will want to visit again and again.

Avri Ohana’s work draws its subject matter from his love of nature and the outdoor life and is also influenced by the rhythms of New York City where he now lives.

H. M. Saffer, II

After spending more than ten years in the Orient, H.M. Saffer, II has developed a provocative painting style in which east-meets-west with his works on paper and his oil techniques on canvas and panel. By combining western techniques with oriental techniques, such as sumi-e painting and using Chinese and Japanese colors, Saffer puts his feelings and emotions on paper and canvas. The use of ‘fude,’ which describes Chinese and Japanese style brushes, give his paintings a different feel. Saffer’s images are ecological in theme and show his oriental influence in the treatment of trees, sky, plants and water. His paintings are serene and at the same time vibrant in theme and filled with vivid and bold color.

After graduating from Temple University Saffer moved to Paris where he became a professional artist and musician. He has also had successful careers as a songwriter and music producer as well as a chef and restaurateur.

Saffer has exhibited internationally in Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Paris, London and across the United States and Canada.

David Schneuer

David Schneuer (1905 - 1988)
Born in Austro-Hungaria in 1905, David Schneuer lived in Europe between the World Wars. As a result, his works are a unique and timeless testimony of Europe during both that time and the golden period of German Expressionism. After graduation from the Munchner Kunstgewerbeschule (The Munich School of Arts and Crafts) he moved to Paris, where he collaborated with many leading artists. His time there influenced him greatly, leaving a lasting impression on his painting.

A contemporary and friend of Thomas Mann, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, David Schneuer started his career in the 1920's as a theatrical stage and poster designer in Berlin and Munich, developing his own style influenced by the German art of Kirchner, Grosz and Beckman. His versatility, skill and innovation won him much acclaim. However, in 1932 he was arrested as an artistic dissident and was imprisoned in Dachau . Upon his release in 1933 he fled to Tel Aviv. There, his paintings, as well as his trademarks - posters and public murals - were received with great enthusiasm in the rapidly expanding city.

Although he lived in Israel for the rest of his life, in his imagination he returned to the insouciantly stylish Parisian world that had first inspired him. His works have a relaxed, raffish charm that is redolent of Toulouse-Lautrec. The same motifs which he used while designing for Brecht are to be found in his paintings - sharp eroticism refined in subtle colors, sensuous characters and virtuoso drawing enhanced by exuberant humor. Unaffected by the ever-changing world about him, Schneuer continued to develop his expressionist style until his death in November 1988. He painted until the last day of his life.

Yitzhak Tarkay

Yitzhak Tarkay was born in 1935 in Subotica on the Yugoslav Hungarian border. When he was only nine years old, the Nazis sent Tarkay to Mathausen concentration camp. After the war, he returned home and developed an interest in art. While still at school in Subotica, he won a prize for excellence in painting.

In 1949 he and his family immigrated to Israel and were sent to a transit camp for new arrivals at Beer Ya'akov. Their next two years were spent in a Kibbutz.

In 1951, Tarkay received a scholarship to the Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem, where he studied for a year before having to leave due to difficult financial circumstances at home. In order to continue his scholarship, he was allowed to study under the artist Schwartzman until his mobilization to the Israeli army.

After returning to the familiar environment of Tel Aviv, Tarkay enrolled in the Avni Institute of Art, which he graduated in 1956. His teachers there were Mokady, Janko, Schtreichman and Sematsky. Today he continues to reside in Israel.

His cafe scenes of sophisticated and serenely elegant women surrounded by a tapestry of rich colors are instantly recognized.

Tina Thomson

Tina Thomson lives and works in a studio on a small island in the Georgia Strait off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Thomson’s figurative watercolor monotypes, made by painting on a piece of glass and then transferring the still-wet painting to paper, overflow with a cacophony of strong, vibrant color. Her work captures the color and tension, surprises and fortitude of living in a rural, remote area with her husband and two sons.

Theo Tobiasse

Theo Tobiasse was born in Palestine in 1927. In 1931 his family moved to Paris where he was educated and, as a child, made his first drawings. During the German occupation of France in World War II, he and his family survived by hiding in a Paris apartment in total isolation. After the war, Tobiasse worked as a graphic designer until 1961 when he abandoned his successful career to concentrate on painting.

A sentimental and private individual, Tobiasse puts his innermost feelings into almost all his work. His reminiscences about his childhood, reflected in symbols of his earlier life, are frequent subjects of his paintings and are combined with Biblical or erotic fantasies, all of which are represented in bright, bold colors.