Gershon Iskowitz
(1919–)
(–1988)
Gershon Iskowitz
1919–1988
Gershon Iskowitz (1919–1988) was a Polish Canadian painter whose work reflected his experiences as a Holocaust survivor at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps, the loss of his family, and his immigration and adaption to Canada. Following his flight from Buchenwald in May 1945, Iskowitz made memory drawings, watercolors, and paintings. Though his works were at first symbolic, the landscapes that later developed were abstracted from nature. His first work after his arrival in Toronto in 1948 was dark rememberings of his past, but gradually he began to paint landscapes around Toronto, then in the Parry Sound area.
Iskowitz studied painting with Oscar Kokoschka in Munich. After receiving a Canada Council grant in 1967, his abstract paintings became reminiscent of aerial landscape views. Only three of his works from 1941 to 1945 still exist: Action, 1941, Buchenwald, 1944–45, and Condemned, 1944–46.
Many public art galleries acquired his artwork through purchase and donation. In the mid-1960s, his work received critical attention and was shown nationally and internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Iskowitz was a member of the RCA.
