Marcel Janco

Refugees, 1939,
Oil on cardboard laid down on canvas,
50X70 cm.
Signed (Faded).

Provenance: Estate of Janet Tocatly (Jaglom).

Janco’s atelier lable attached to the reverse.

Exhibition: Janco-Dada Museum, April-July, 1990.

This painting is usually attributed to 1939 (also dated on the label on the reverse), however, this is very unlikely (as a rule of thumb, Janco excelled at inaccuracies regarding the dates of his paintings) because the painting depicts an event that took place in 1941: at the end of June ’41, some few days after Operation Barbarossa (the German invasion into the Soviet Union), but prior to the ”Final Solution”, bloody events took place in Iasi in Romania, one of the most brutal pogroms in the history of East-European Jews. Romanian authorities orchestrated the pogrom in collaboration with the German Nazis.
All of the Jews were taken out, 14,000 – 20,000 murdered. Marcel Janco came to Israel in 1941, around the time of this painting, horrified at the murder of his brother in law in Bucharest by the ”Iron Guard” members, and his exclusion from any public-artistic activity as a Jew.
Expulsion paintings by Janco in his Romanian period (a few exist in different variations), expressed his universal humanism, more than his Jewish identity.
A painting such as ”The Expulsion from Iasi” cannot be separated from other paintings he made in Israel from 1953 and onwards depicting Palestinian refugees leaving (expelled? Escaping?) their village En Khod in 1948, just a few years before that village – now Ein Hod – is populated by artists, led by Marcel Janco.
Form wise, ”The Expulsion from Iasi” is a significant painting by Janco, related to a line of paintings depicting expulsion of Jews, painted since Samuel Hirschenberg’s ”Exile” (1904), ”Refugees” by Abel Pann (1906) and others. Customary to Janco’s figurative paintings, the whole painting is constructed with dramatic rhythmic lines, confronting sharp forms with round and contrasting blues with reds. The trees at fall, outside the town seen in the background, symbolize the cold winter destined for Jewish refugees, oblivious to their soon to be harsh fate.
(Translated and adapted from Gidon Ofrat)

Estimated price: $30,000 - $50,000

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About: Marcel Janco

Marcel Janco born in Bucharest, Romania in 1895, his life history can be divided into two main chapters: 46 years in Europe and 43 years in Israel. His artistic talent became apparent early on. He learned the foundations of classical art from his teacher Josef Isser who would continue to influence his work throughout his life. Janco started "Simbolul" and "Chemarea", literary journals in which his drawings were first published. At the age of 20, Janco went to Zurich to study architecture at the Federal Institute of Technology and joined a group of young artists performing at the Cabaret Voltaire as part of the avant-garde Dada movement. Janco played an active role in the entire group’s activities, curated exhibitions, issued manifestos, and published a journal. Janco himself designed the masks they wore in their performances and participated in the shows. During this period, Janco also belonged to "New Life", a group that organized artistic and intellectual activities. In 1922, after a brief stay in Paris, Janco returned to Romania and his paintings were now mostly of local landscapes, peasants, interiors and classical subjects which he depicted in a modernist style. His work displayed cubist elements along with dark coloration, particularly browns and grays, and he was involved with several other groups of Romanian artists who were similarly striving to promote the principles of modernism. Despite his professional success in the country of his birth, in 1940, at the start of World War II, Janco decided to move with his family to Israel. Once here, both his style of painting and his architectural work underwent a striking change, with the Mediterranean light finding its way into his palette. He carried with him a sketchbook in which he recorded what he saw, and then reproduced the scenes in vivid colors on his return to the studio. His paintings from this period depict the landscapes and people of the country, as well as its heroic struggle for independence. In 1948 Janco was one of the founding fathers of the movement "Ofakim Hadashim" (New Horizons) alongside artists such as Yehezkel Streichman and Joseph Zaritsky. In 1953 Janco wanted to find a way to restore the Arab village Ein Hod and convinced artists and sculptors to move there. He himself joined the first group of settlers in Ein Hod. Janco was part of the art school "Studia" and later he taught in a variety of institutions, as well as in courses conducted in Ein Hod. In the last twenty years of Janco's life he actively promoted the village of Ein Hod, as well as writing articles about a range of subjects that drew his interest and in 1967 he received the Israel Prize for his work. His last works display an absolute return to abstract and geometric shapes.