Man and Girl Over His Shoulder

David (Dudu) Gerstein (b. Jerusalem 1944)
Jerusalem, ca. 1974
Watercolor, h. 18 3/8 x w. 26 7/16 in.
Cincinnati Skirball Museum, gift of The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, 2018.16

David (Dudu) Gerstein was born in Jerusalem to parents who immigrated from Poland. He showed artistic talent from an early age and studied first at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Art Students League in New York. Returning to Israel in 1960, Gerstein began teaching at Bezalel, where he continued as a senior lecturer until 1985.

During the 1970s, Gerstein focused on figurative drawings, watercolors, and paintings of interiors and the seaside where he sought to make statements about the human experience and interactions between men and women. Watercolors soon became his main medium, and he strove to express “the placidity of daily routine.”

During the 1980s, Gerstein turned to sculpture, working first in wood and aluminum. In 1995, after years of woodcutting, Gerstein discovered the use of laser and began cutting metals and painting them in shiny colors taken from the car industry. He has produced a line of work influenced by sports, such as marathon running, swimming and bicycling. Other motifs are urban landscapes, nature, and human interaction.