Afroyim Soshana

Infobox Artist
name = Soshana


image_size = 175px
caption = A successful woman painter of 20th century
birth_date = birth date|1927|9|1|mf=y
birth_place = Austria, Vienna, Austria
death_date =
death_place =
death_cause =
other_names =
footnotes =
known_for = Artist

Soshana (born September 1927) is an Austrian painter.

Biography

Soshana was born on September 1, 1927 in Vienna (Austria) in a middle class Jewish family. She was named Susanne Schüller. She attended the Schwarzwaldschule situated in the Herrengasse in what was Vienna’s first high-rise building. The school was founded by the reformist educator Eugenie Schwarzwald, and was one of the first educational institutes for girls.In 1938, at a highly impressionable age of 11, Soshana had to escape without any luggage first to Switzerland and then to England. In England she resumed her studies and went to Northwood College. She received her first formal training in painting and fashion drawing at Chelsey Polytechnic School in London.In 1941, along with her family she crossed the mine-filled Atlantic, aboard one of the last ships bound for the USA. She traveled through the United States with her future husband, Beys Afroyim, visiting and painting the portraits of many prominent personalities along the way. They portrayed well known politicians, scientists, authors and musicians viz. Arnold Schönberg, Thomas Mann, Franz Werfel, Leon Feuchtwanger, Hans Eisler, Bruno Walter, and Otto Klemperer as a living.

During this journey, she married Beys Afroyim in Chicago in 1945.

Work

Early Works

Soshana’s early paintings mainly comprised of portraits and still life. Her concentration was on realty rather than naturalism. The object in her paintings referred to the society or the circumstances she lived in.Susanne became Soshana after her first major exhibition in Havana in 1948. She moved to Paris in 1952.

Paris

Paris played a major role in refining the artist what Soshana is today. In the 1950s Paris was the art capital. This was the period when equal rights to men and women were only spoken of. A combination of eccentricity and charisma, both in her personality and in her works, were her entrée to the intellectuals and artists scene in Paris, in which she was acquainted with, among others, Constantin Brancusi, Jean Bazaine, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Sam Francis, Alberto Giacometti, August Herbin, Yves Klein, Frantisek Kupka, Jean Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, and Ossip Zadkine.Soshana earned herself the name as a talented artist and also recognition from the great artists. Picasso had been highly impressed with this talented and bold woman that he complimented her with his words as well as by making a portrait of her.

East

Soshana traveled to east to India in 1956, where she as a member of the Theosophical Society, learned from Indian gurus and ashrams to recognize and to question the manifold appearances of our world. In China, Soshana learnt the special watercolour and China ink techniques in order to be able to paint on the medium rice paper. She traveled to Japan to learn calligraphy in monasteries from monks in Kyoto.

CoBrA

Her personal relationship with Pinot Gallizio brought her close to the CoBrA group and even led to the co-production of work. Cobra group and Japanese art techniques resulted in organic rhythm and vivid lines and colours by Soshana. She was acquainted with Appel and Asger Jorn, members of the Dutch-Belgium group of artists, leading representatives of a figurative pictorial language of the post-war period. However, as a woman, she was never officially admitted into the group.

New York

New York had become the new capital of art in 1960s. Soshana moved to New York in 1974.Here Soshana had friends like Adolph Gottlieb, Yves Klein Francesco Clemente, Joseph Hirschhorn and Mark Rothko.

Home coming

1985 saw the homecoming of Soshana to Vienna, Austria. This is where it all began and London, New York, Paris, India, China, Japan, Cuba and Mexico had been memorable chapters in her life. She is still trying new art techniques and is going great at 80.

Museums

*Albertina, Graphics Collection, Vienna
*Museum of Modern Art, Paris
*Museum of Modern Art, Rome
*Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro
*Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo
*Museum of Modern Art, Mexico
*Museum of Modern Art, New Delhi
*Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fé
*Bezalel Museum, Jerusalem
*The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
*Helena Rubinstein Museum, Tel Aviv
*Jewish Museum, New York
*Leo Baeck Institute, New York
*New York Hospital, New York
*Stamford Museum, Connecticut
*Salisbury Art Gallery, Rhodesia
*Farleigh Dickenson University, New Jersey
*Hirschhorn Museum, Washington, DC
*Musée Matisse, Nice
*Musée Picasso, Antibes
*Petit Palais, Geneva
*Neue Galerie, Linz, Austria
*Oberbank Wien

References

*"Soshana" , United Artists Ltd., tel Aviv, Israel
*"Soshana", paintings and drawings, 1945 -1997, Barbara Baum
*"Juedische Frauen in der bildenden Kunst II", Ein biographisches
*Verzeichnis, Hedwig Brenner, Hg. von Erhard Roy Wien, hartung-Gorre Verlag
*Konstanze erste Auflage 2004
*Kunst der Gegenwart, Klaus Honnef, Taschen, 1998
*"Der Surrealismus: Die letzte Momentaufnahme der euopaeischen Intelligenz".
*Walter Benjamin (1929), Bibliothek Suhrkamp
*"Geschichte des Surrealismus", Reinbeck bei Hamburg, Rowolth 1986
*Anfaenge des Informel in Oesterreich, ed. O. Breicha, Kat.Mus. des. des 20.
*Hh., Vienna 1972
*Abstrakte Kunst nach 1945. Der Aufbruch im Informel, Kat. Saarbruecken 1982
*"Soshana- Leben und Werk" Martina Gabriel, 2006
*Dictionaire d'Anuelle d'art
*International Biographical Centre
*Benezite
*Leonardo
*Who's who in Art and Antiques
*Who's who in America
*Art in America
*Foremost Women of the twentieth Century

External links

* [http://www.bollaggalleries.com/e/artists/collection.php]
* [http://www.kanzleizentrum-salzburg.at]
* [http://www.antibes-juanlespins.com Picasso Museum - Soshana Exhibition]
* [http://www.eximiousbooks.com Old books to order about Soshana, e.g. Soshana, 1973]
* [http://www.lentos.at Lentos Museum, Linz, bought 5 paintings]