Dan S. Chill: World naïve art promoter in Israel

The idea of a story for the Magazine was inspired by Dan S. Chill’s lecture about naïve art at the opening of “Return to Innocence,” the new exhibition at GINA Gallery for Naive Art in Tel Aviv. Soon, though, the conversation turned to the fascinating life of Chill, intrinsically part of the history of Israel – and of Palestine – where his mother and grandparents were born.

A single look at a naïve art painting forever changed the life of this successful American–Israeli lawyer. It was on a business trip to Honduras in 1983 that naïve art was to become the essence of Chill’s life. In addition to his legal career, he became a collector of naïve art (Chill has 375 naïve art paintings in his home alone), and in 2003 the founder of GINA. 

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For over two decades, every couple of months Chill’s gallery has inaugurated a new collection of naïve art from distinct areas of the globe. Particularly during the current war, GINA’s shows provide viewers with an opportunity to disconnect from reality and move into the colorful world of “optimistic reality.” The current exhibition will run until the end of January 2025. 

Chill was born in Miami, Florida, in 1945 to a traditional Jewish family with an unusual history. His parents met and married in 1930s Palestine. “My father was an American who made aliyah, and my mother was a ‘Palestinian’ [a Jew who had been living in the Yishuv] of many generations; she came from a religious home,” Chill said. 

His father, a clothing manufacturer, opened a shop on King George Street in Jerusalem. His older sister was born in 1938, shortly before World War II.

In 1940, faced with the danger of the approach of Nazism from Europe, Chill’s parents moved to the United States. 

“There was the threat of [German Gen. Erwin] Rommel coming up from the south, from Egypt, and the [German] Panzer [tank] division in Turkey... threatening from the north. It looked like Palestine was going to be overrun by the Nazis. The United States government stated that it would ‘wash its hands of our obligation [to protect you],’ this included my father and his family ‘unless you leave the country [Palestine] immediately.’ So my parents decided to leave.” 

The family’s safety became their priority.

“Of course, they couldn’t travel the short way through the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, so they went overland (by car) to Basra, Iraq, where they boarded a boat and traveled through the Persian Gulf, the Pacific Ocean, and the Panama Canal, all the way up to New York.” The journey took over two months. 

“They arrived in New York in January 1941. There was snow on the ground and frigid temperatures. My mother said: “This isn’t for me. I can’t live here.” So they moved to Florida. I was born on [V-J Day] victory day over Japan... August [15] 1945 – in Miami.” 

Chill’s parents tried to return to Palestine when it was already the State of Israel, but it was difficult financially, so they decided to settle permanently in Miami. The family was traditional, and Chill attended a Jewish day school – the Hebrew Academy of Miami Beach. 

A dramatic turn

Life took a dramatic turn when Chill was eight years old and the family decided to go on a trip to New York. 

“My parents were killed in a traffic accident. My sister and I were also in that accident. We were thrown clear of the car...” Chill told the Magazine.

After the tragic accident, he and his sister were raised by their aunt in New York in a much more religious home. Chill graduated from Ramaz School, “a fairly famous Jewish day school in New York. I continued my education at New York University, where I got a bachelor of arts in government and international relations; a law degree at Harvard Law School, and a master’s of public administration at John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1970.” 

The first five years of his career were spent working as a lawyer in Boston, but after the Yom Kippur War he knew that he wanted to move to Israel.  

In 1975, Chill made aliyah with his wife, Abigail (a daughter of Rabbi Louis C Gerstein, a well-known rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in New York City). They moved to Kiryat Ono, where they have been living ever since.

“WHAT THEY call ‘Zionism’ brought me to Israel. I was brought up to love Israel,” Chill said, but he is not uncritical. 

“We’re relatively liberal Orthodox, and as someone wearing a kippah, I want to say that even after 50 years in Israel, we [still] come from the United States. So for us, it’s anathema that there are political parties of a religious nature; that wouldn’t work in the United States. It’s an awful thing. And it harms the country as we see it.” 

Chill emphasized that as an observant person, he sees respectful human interaction as crucial: “I think that they [the ultra-Orthodox] understand from religion that while one can set aside the rules and regulations (or the mitzvot, as we say) between man and God, one cannot dismiss those [that regulate behavior] between people.” 

Chill spoke about Israel with the same intensity he used for his beloved naïve art, which he discovered by coincidence on a business trip. 

“I’m an international commercial lawyer [who has been] working for years with corporate clients. I used to travel the world on their behalf to finalize contracts in various countries. When I came to Israel 50 years ago, I traveled on behalf of Israel Aircraft Industries, which was run by Al Schwimmer. [And among other jobs] I also worked for Indigo [led by Benny Landa].”

In 1983, Chill, at age 38, armed with a trunkful of personal and professional experiences, discovered naïve art. He was about to head out to the airport in Honduras, he recalled, when, opposite his hotel, he noticed several paintings in a shop window. One, The Bullfight by Roque Zelaya, stole his heart. He purchased it and brought it back home to Kiryat Ono, thus beginning his enormous collection.

Asked what attracted him to this particular painting, Chill recalled, “The fact that although it was a bullfight, it was the most charming, wonderful, joyful bullfight that one could have. The ‘matador’ was a child, the bull was a young bull, and the spectators were all children. So this was the most unusual type of bullfight that I’d ever seen.”

Chill began to buy one naïve art painting on each of his business trips, building a unique collection. As it grew, he noticed that his guests at home would interrupt their talk of politics or business to ask about the paintings on the walls. While naïve art was still unknown to many, Chill was becoming an expert in it. And, in 2003, when he had run out of display walls in his home, he opened GINA (www.ginagallery.com). 

“In Brazil, there are only the Brazilian naïve artists; in France, only the French; in Canada, only the Canadian; but at GINA, we show naïve art from all over the world. [The gallery] was created to enable people to understand what naïve art is all about,” its founder explained.

Chill, who recently handed over GINA’s official reins to the younger generation, is still involved in the life of the gallery and loves to teach viewers at the exhibition openings about the nature of naïve art and its various styles. He discusses it passionately, emphasizing that “Childlike art should never be taken for childish.” 

He enjoys the simplicity of the stories painted on canvas, the vivid colors, and the multi elements. 

“First, there is a simple, easy-to-understand scene. Everything, as you see, is what it is. 

“Number two, [in] the world of naive art, an important element is the idealization of the scene. 

“Number three, it’s not just an idealization of the scene, it’s an enchantingly innocent view of life. A child looks upon everything in a relatively innocent way, and an artist in the naive scenes is reflecting, looking upon life without any cynicism, without any view of a negative nature or of trying to understand what’s hidden behind and what’s going on here.” 

Actually, not all naïve artists focus exclusively on the positive, although in the gallery created by Chill, the accent is on the brighter side of life. 

Listening to his life story, including the tragic events of his childhood, the sense was that he had rediscovered his childhood in naïve art. And he has done so on a grand scale, sharing the joy with others through the gallery. 

Chill explained that although as a lawyer, father of three, and grandfather of 11 he sees the world in “a very realistic fashion, not naively,” what he loves most about naïve art is that “it celebrates the human narrative.” ■

Dan S. Chill, 79 From Boston to Kiryat Ono, 1975

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