Description
Cyril Lixenberg was born in Londons East End on July 5, 1932. He was one of 12 children of Annie (Sussman) and Morris Lixenberg. At age 14 Cyril was apprenticed to a gold and silversmith. He attended the London Central School of Arts & Crafts where he studied painting and graphic arts. In 1954 he studied in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts.He traveled throughout Europe and settled in Amsterdam in 1958. In the 1960s he bought a second home in Hitzum in Friesland and has worked alternately in Amsterdam and Friesland since then. Lixenberg has made a name for himself in the Netherlands and internationally as a geometric-abstract sculptor and graphic artist. Lixenberg is the father of photographer Dana Lixenberg.
After the war until 1970, he used his Hebrew name, Shalom. He married Saskia Thomas in 1964. His landscape paintings were increasingly influenced by WWII and Vietnam, and then in a shift from abstract expressionism to geometric abstraction turned to making monoprints and silkscreen prints. Commissions to create art for buildings led to art in steel, poured concrete, and earthworks, and sculptures in plexiglass, stainless steel and COR-TEN steel and from this a focus on outdoor public art. An exhibit at the University of Michigan brought Cyril to Michigan where he made the connection with Grand Valley State Universitys Art Gallery Director. In 2013, Grand Valley produced a retrospective of his work and, through a major donation of his early work, received the distinction of owning the largest collection of Lixenbergs work in the world. Lixenberg died in January 11, 2015 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
This is a rare very early work ‘Scene in the synagogue’, gouache on paper, dating from around 1959-1960. In very good condition, signed ‘Lixenberg’, framed, 55×76/33×48.
