Pinchas Litvinovsky could lay claim to being the Israeli art world’s best-kept secret. The Russian-born painter, who died in 1985 at the age of 91, was, in the words of Amichai Chasson, quite simply “one of Israel’s greatest artists.” As the curator of an extensive retrospective of Litvinovsky’s oeuvre, currently on show at Beit Avi Chai, Chasson should know.

The show goes by the telling name of “You Must Choose Life – That Is Art.”

“I think Litvinovsky chose life through art,” Chasson observes. “For him, to be an artist was to be in life.” The curator takes that idea a step further, venturing slap-bang into the cold light of Israeli reality.

“I think that is the answer to [the emotional difficulty of dealing with] this situation: Don’t watch the news, go and look at art.” Well put.

It is safe to say that Litvinovsky did not spend too much of his time following the political developments and current affairs of the day. Then again, he did rack up a welter of portraits of political figures, from both Israel and abroad.

The Beit Avi Chai spread features a slew of instantly recognizable VIPs, such as prime minister Golda Meir, president Chaim Weizmann, president Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, and US president Harry Truman. The Meir picture is a revelation in terms of the delicacy of its rendition. Back in the day, in the male-dominated political circles and media, there were all sorts of derogatory macho remarks aimed at Israel’s first – and thus far, only – female prime minister, such as casting doubt on her femininity. Litvinovsky’s take presents Meir with a surprisingly tender appearance.

Walking around the exhibition that is spread across three floors, one gains the impression of an artist who never stopped evolving, constantly venturing into new territory, and trying his hand at anything that came his way. This is expressed in his numerous styles, such as naïve renditions of Orientalism-type scenes with camels and donkeys to wildly expressive works; minimalist pictures in which the artist creates a complex layered evocative narrative with just a few lines; and canvases that explode in a volcanic eruption of bright, abrasive, screaming colors.

Abstract domains

LITVINOVSKY ALSO strays into abstract domains, while always retaining a sense of an irrepressible life force and an unquenchable passion to create, to keep his nose to the grindstone, and to churn out the goods – life as he sees and feels it.

There are numerous items in the show that stop you in your tracks. He had, for instance, a “thing” about David Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister and universally accepted Israeli icon across all ethnic backgrounds and political leanings. The ground floor display area has a handful of Ben-Gurion portraits spanning several moods and, presumably, portrayal intent.

“You don’t know whether Litvinovsky is presenting us with a tribute to a great man or expressing his own protest against someone who considers himself to be above the law and so much more superior to everyone else,” Chasson posits.

That may very well be the case, but it is hard to tell.

Indeed, little is known about Litvinovsky and his inner machinations. We do know that he hailed from Novogeorgiyevsk (then in Russia and relocated to Odessa), one of the world’s cultural centers at the time. There he met Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem, who was suitably impressed with the work of the 20-something Litvinovsky.

Schatz not only invited the youngster to attend Bezalel, but he also offered him a scholarship. But Litvinovsky was made of sterner stuff. Unfazed by Schatz’s generosity and the opportunity to study art in Jerusalem, Litvinovsky dropped out of Bezalel after a while, dissatisfied with the school’s approach. He returned to Russia and continued his art studies in Petrograd (later St. Petersburg) before returning to pre-state Palestine shortly after the end of World War I, aboard the famed Third Aliyah ship the SS Ruslan.

THE NEW immigrant was keen to make his mark and immerse himself in his art. To that effect, he took on board as many sources of inspiration as he could, greedily absorbing the influences of the likes of Picasso, Matisse, and Cezanne – both during a sojourn in Paris in the 1930s and by means of scores of reproductions he amassed.

“I think it is fascinating that you can look at Litvinovsky’s works and see the history of art in the 20th century, almost in its entirety,” Chasson notes. “You can see the influence of Picasso and of Matisse and Paul Klee, and also Cezanne. You can really see how he gulps down the art he is exposed to and tries to create his own reading of it all. What he does is never Picasso or Matisse per se. It is Litvinovsky imbibing what they did and putting his own stamp on that.”

All those reference points are on display at Beit Avi Chai, including, intriguingly, in a section Chasson named “The Violinist.” When it comes to depicting musicians, regardless of the style in question, one’s mind generally goes in the direction of Picasso. There is, for example, Picasso’s seminal Old Guitarist from his Blue Period, during the first years of the 20th century. Matisse, too, produced his fair share of guitarist-based works. Litvinovsky, Chasson explains, drew on those and other sources, and just went his own way.

“Gideon Ofrat, who is probably the leading researcher of Litvinovsky today, as an art historian, put it really well – I think it is a brilliant observation – he said that Litvinovsky’s violinist paintings were inspired by Picasso,” says Chasson. According to Ofrat, he didn’t just replicate the instrumental aesthetics and ambiance naturally, in his own way, but he imbued the images with his own cultural background and heritage.

“[Ofrat] said Litvinovsky takes the Spanish mandolin, the string instrument used by the [French and Spanish] Cubists, and translates that into a Jewish instrument. There is, here, an intellectual initiative to create his own language – and how to translate these images to something that is his own.”

Listening to Chasson and assistant curator Rika Grinfeld Barnea, one can only conclude that Litvinovsky was determined to carve his niche and plot his own pathway betwixt the pitfall-laden domain of creative endeavor.

He was, it seems, his own man, and to hell with the rest of them.

“You could say he was a school of thought of just one person,” Chasson continues. “He took on things from all sorts of artists into his own brew, and created his own approach.”

Making your way around the exhibition is something of an aesthetic, emotional, and cerebral rollercoaster. There are highly complex dense works, such as the one that bears the biblical quote (“Choose life”) that appears in the exhibition’s title. The painting comprises a jumble of bodies, skeletal yet fully rounded, imparting a sense of innocence while exuding heady eroticism. Eros, in its basic ancient Greek form, not only refers to sexual love but also implies the essence of life force. You get that from several of Litvinovsky’s paintings, along with some sense of his depth of thought and his strong connection to the sensual and corporeal side of human existence.

But how do you equate that with the apparent naiveté of some of the earlier works that he presumably produced during his first years in Palestine? True to his go-it-alone and “damn the rest” ethos, Litvinovsky almost never attached names or dates to his paintings.

As a stark transition and a visually, and emotionally alleviating, counterbalance to his more intense output, there are fetching cartoon-like offerings in which the artist masterfully conveys layered storylines with a minimum of deftly applied lines.

There is a charming scene in which ultra-Orthodox children engage in a street game; another that shows a seated violinist, instrument at the ready before he brings his other hand – strangely without a bow – into the music-making fray. You can’t miss the frisson of expectation watching the musician on the cusp of sonic fruition. You can almost hear the first notes emanating from the frame. These works fed off Litvinovsky’s penchant for classical music and opera. He often painted through the night, with music blaring from his record player or radio.

INTERESTINGLY AND tellingly, the exhibits in the “Childlike Style Drawings” section – in contrast with the Oriental-themed slot – come from the latter part of Litvinovsky’s long life.

It is as if, having weathered the storms of personal and artistic evolution and paid his dues, he could finally let it all hang out without having to hedge his creative bets. Mind you, he had never paid much notice to what others might have had to say about his work, but in these drawings he was clearly going with his own inimitable and unapologetic flow.

“As a mature artist, he added far more of his own artistic approach,” says Chasson,” focusing on core characteristics and distilling the images into the essence of color and form.”

It is as if at this stage, Litvinovsky had shed the excess baggage accrued during his four-score-plus years and was having his own say on just what he thought and felt about himself and the world around him. He was certainly not shooting from the hip.

As Chasson puts it: “Many of these works were painted with a childlike air, with free improvisation that removed unnecessary detail and used simple colorful lines that convey innocence, simplicity, precision, and the joy of life.”

Litvinovsky’s ceaseless search for meaning in life took him along various spiritual avenues, including Buddhism, and into Kabbalistic climes. One room at Beit Avi Chai houses a spread of his compelling paintings of great rabbis. Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky (aka The Steipler), one of the heads of the Lithuanian haredi community, gets a thoughtful rendition as does Rabbi Shlomo Friedman, the rabbi of the Chortkov hassidic dynasty.

The artist clearly respects the spiritual leaders, but this is not blind gushing admiration. You get some sense of the subjects’ depth, but they are also very much flesh and blood. “In these works, he tries to merge the lofty spiritual element with the mundane,” Chasson suggests.

“You generally get two approaches to depicting rabbis. You either find them in some exalted pose or very realistic. Litvinovsky doesn’t do either. He tries to convey something he took in from the texts he read by them and something from their spiritual image. They are sometimes grotesque and disproportionate. They are not painted correctly. That’s not the way you paint rabbis. But that is what makes the series so captivating. He paints them as living beings, not as statuesque figures.”

There is clearly much more to Litvinovsky than meets the eye. He was very much his own man. He did not mix with other artists and, after the 1960s, did not exhibit much. He rarely sold works, other than the portraiture of celebs, which helped him keep the wolves at bay and, early on, gained him the unofficial title of “the state portrait artist.” Here is a man for whom compromise, on any level, was anathema to his very being.

In fact, we are lucky to be able to gain a firsthand impression of his output at all. After he died, one of his daughters, Dafna, took on the mantle of caring for and cataloging his works, which at the time were housed in the beautiful building on November 29 Street in Jerusalem where Litvinovsky lived for much of his life – and which now serves as the Studio of Her Own exhibition and workshop space.

After Dafna passed away, the artist’s grandson Alon was entrusted with tending to Litvinovsky’s voluminous legacy, which incorporated 6,000 items. For one reason or another, tragically, the majority of the works were subsequently destroyed, and only 600 remain. Around one-fifth of them are currently hanging on the walls of three floors at Beit Avi Chai.

Thankfully, notwithstanding his challenging character and his tendency to eschew the company of his fellow creators and publicity in general (he never gave interviews or responded to critiques of his work), Litvinovsky did get some well-deserved high-level official recognition.

In 1939, he was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture, established in 1937 by the Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. Thirty-one years later, Jerusalem, Litvinovsky’s adopted hometown, followed suit with the Yakir Yerushalayim (Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem) award. In 1980, he received the ultimate official pat on the back when he shared the Israel Prize for Painting with Anna Ticho and Yosl Bergner. As “You Must Choose Life – That Is Art” patently shows, it was certainly what this singular person and artist deserved.

For now, we can all enjoy at least some slivers of Litvinovsky’s unique take on life in his artistic representation thereof. Hopefully, at some point the state will do its bit to honor and preserve his invaluable life’s work and provide it with its own accessible home. ■

‘You Must Choose Life – That Is Art’ closes on May 30, 2025. For more information: bac.org.il/en