watercolor, gouache, ink, 32 x 48 cm in light passe-partout, signed p.d.: Tepler
Samuel Tepler (1918 in Hrubieszow - 1998 Tel Aviv) - Israeli painter from a family of Polish Jews. From 1937 he studied at the Stefan Batory University in Vilna. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in the studio of Professor Ludomir Sleńdzinski, his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II and deportation to Uzbekistan. He made his way north of the Urals and earned a living painting portraits of Joseph Stalin and Communist politicians of the USSR. After the war ended, he managed to return to Poland, but when he learned that all his relatives had died he decided to go to Milan, where he began studying at the Accademia di belle arti di Brera under Aldo Salvadori. He completed his studies in 1949 and emigrated to the forming Israel and settled in Tel Aviv. From the beginning he took up the pursuit of painting, in addition, he actively participated in the emerging local artistic life, including being a member of the Israeli Association of Painters and Sculptors. Traveling around the world, he visited Italy many times, and after 1970 settled in Verona for several years, where he taught the art of painting and created. In 1974, he was awarded a distinction by the Accademia Tiberina in Rome, and in 1975 he received the UNESCO Gold Medal and the Italian State Prize Tetradramma d'Oro. During his stay in Italy, Samuel Tepler's contacts began with the Lambert Gallery in Paris, which was run by the Polish couple Romanowicz. The artist had three solo exhibitions there, they took place in 1976, 1978 and 1982. In 1991, the Zachęta Gallery held an exhibition "We are", which included the work of Polish artists working in exile, Samuel Tepler participated in it by exhibiting landscapes painted ten years earlier. Tepler's first solo exhibition in Poland took place in 1998 at Krakow's Space Gallery shortly after the painter's death.
