Rare works by Israeli artists Rubin, Gutman head to auction valued at $300,000

Tiroche auction house aims high, with sale of long-awaited museum-grade pieces from private collections overseas returning home to a surprisingly bullish local market

When Tiroche holds its annual auction on June 28, it will feature Nahum Gutman’s rolling hills of Ein Kerem and Reuven Rubin’s portrait of a young Jerusalemite woman, along with other long-awaited works by leading Israeli artists drawn from several major collections.

“These sales are always exciting,” said Amitai Hazan, CEO of the auction house, “but even more so with these collections that we’ve been working on for years and which are finally here.”

In addition to Gutman and Rubin, the Tiroche auction will feature works by early 20th-century artists Yehezkel Streichman, Mordecai Ardon and Menachem Shemi, alongside contemporary pieces by others such as Michal Rovner, Israel Hershberg, Fatima Abu Rumi and Lea Nikel.

Three of the artworks are valued at NIS 1 million ($300,000) each, a price considered to be on the very high end for Israeli art. These include two by Rubin depicting Jerusalem from the 1920s and 1930s — the period widely regarded as the peak of his artistic career — and a 1972 painting by Ardon.

The paintings come from three collections of Israeli art assembled outside the country, by Joseph and Gerda Brender of Sydney; Rubin and Peggy Zimmerman, who built their collection during the 1960s and 1970s; and Nathan Kaplan, a Zionist activist from Chicago.

“It’s not just which paintings, it’s the quality,” said Hazan. “They are museum-grade collections.”

Other works at auction are expected to sell for several thousand dollars and upward, Hazan said, while the top-estimated pieces reflect a market that’s stronger than expected after suffering from the coronavirus pandemic and almost three years of war with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

“I first heard that the prices in the Israeli art market were expected to fall a little, that collectors were buying more modern works, especially the younger, high-tech buyers,” he said.

Since the bloody October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, collectors of Israeli art were looking for older works, seeking a sense of nostalgia in painting and sculpture as the country was shaken to its core by one of the most traumatic events in its history.

“The market woke up, it was like a signal for these collections that it was time to sell,” said Hazan.

He likened it to the recent sold-out reunion concerts for “The 16th Sheep,” featuring some of Israel’s most beloved musicians, and the reunion of the comic troupe Zehu Ze.

“People want to go back to the beginning, to the things that make you feel good,” Hazan said.

The auction house had been in touch with the Brender family for several years, but discussions were paused after October 7. The Zimmermans were a more recent addition when the family saw the bullish market and decided to move ahead on selling their collection.

“They have items that you really only see in museums,” said Hazan, noting their focus on four artists — Rubin, Gutman, Ardon and Moshe Castel — all collected in the 1960s and 1970s.

“If you compare it to tech investments, they invested in Apple and Facebook when they were just starting,” he said. “They had a very good eye.”

It’s been an uneasy two and a half years for Tiroche, just as with any Israeli business.

Just one day before an auction slated for April 14, 2024, the Iranian military launched its first-ever direct attack on Israeli territory.

“I was planning to postpone, and we got up that next morning, and everyone was in a great mood about what the Israeli air force had pulled off — there was optimism in the air,” he said.

Hazan’s advisors pushed him to lean into the moment and hold the auction anyway.

“This is our country, we live from peak to peak,” he said.

An auction planned for mid-June last year then had to be postponed because of the 12-day war with Iran.

“It’s hard to do business like this in Israel, you plan things for months, and almost nothing works out the way you planned,” Hazan said.

When the upcoming auction takes place on June 28, most of the 2,000 expected bidders will be attending virtually.

The Rubin and Ardon works will compete for collectors’ attention, though they are from different eras: Ardon was more successful in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, while Rubin’s works are from the 1920s.

“Those works are now 100 years old,” said Hazan.

Overall, said Hazan, he feels a sense of satisfaction that these seminal Israeli works, “the good ones,” could end up back home.