Toys

Yosl Bergner (Warsaw, Poland 1920-2017 Tel Aviv-Yafo)
Tel Aviv, 1973
Lithograph, h. 26 ½ x w. 19 5/8 in.
Cincinnati Skirball Museum, gift of Nancy M. Berman and Alan J. Bloch, 2018.9

Bergner was born in Warsaw, Poland, reached Australia by the age of 17, and emigrated to Israel in 1951, settling first in Safed and afterwards in Tel Aviv. Surrealism served as a source of inspiration for Bergner, though he identified more as a lover of stories, and narrative elements appear frequently in his work.

Bergner was preoccupied with ordinary domestic objects such as irons, dishes, oil lamps, or even toys. In this print, he depicts a variety of simple children’s toys—a clown, a toy soldier on a horse on wheels, a doll. The narrative is unclear, as there is no context for the toys—only a sense of dynamic movement intensified by the toy’s wheels and the artist’s lively draftsmanship.