Caesarea

Reuven Rubin (Romania 1893–1974 Tel Aviv)
Caesarea, 1972
Color lithograph, h. 24 5/8 x w. 24 5/16 in.
Cincinnati Skirball Museum, gift of Nancy M. Berman and Alan J. Bloch, 2018.12

Romanian-born Rubin Zelicovici immigrated to Israel in 1912 and settled in Jerusalem, where he started to sign his drawings “Reuven” in Hebrew and “Rubin” in Latin characters. A year later he traveled to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. At the outbreak of World War I, he was returned to Romania, where he spent the war years.  He returned to Israel in 1923, where he joined other pioneering artists who yearned to portray their country’s landscape and people in modern artistic terms. Caesarea is typical of Rubin’s late work in which the influence of such artists as Renoir is evident. Through an open window dominated by a vase of vibrant flowers, we glimpse the beauty of an ancient city on the Mediterranean coast, with its spacious fields, archeological ruins, and a glimpse of the sea.