Simcha Norberg, Love Scene
Simcha Nornberg (1918–2000)
Love Scene
ink on paper, 21.2 x 19.5 cm
signed and inscribed lower right: NORNBERG | “That’s a bit like me,” but with a beard
He was born in Nowy Brzesk, the son of Hadassa and Natan, into a poor, religious family. He received a traditional education at a cheder and the Talmud Torah.
Nornberg graduated in 1937 from HaGymnasia HaIvrit in Kraków, where he began painting. He also began studying law at Jagiellonian University, playing a leading role in Zionist movements. At the start of World War II, he moved to the eastern part of Poland, which was under Soviet control, and organized Zionist youth in Lviv. In 1940, Nornberg was declared an “enemy of the people” and sentenced to imprisonment and hard labor in Soviet labor camps, where he refused to work on Yom Kippur. His paintings, created for the wife of a prisoner-of-war camp commander, saved his life. Most of his family remained in the German-occupied part of Poland and perished in the Holocaust. His older sister, Genia Weinstein, was saved by Oskar Schindler.
Nornberg returned to Poland in 1946, where he became involved in Zionist politics and educational activities. He founded the first Hebrew school in Katowice and actively helped Jewish survivors emigrate to the Land of Israel. He took up painting again, depicting mainly landscapes of small Jewish towns and villages destroyed during the war. His Zionist activities put his life at risk, and he was forced to flee Poland. After a brief stay in Paris, he emigrated to Israel with his family in 1948 .
From 1949 to 1952, Nornberg actively participated in Israeli politics and public life. From 1952 to 1955, he was a member of the leadership of the World Jewish Congress. He edited the Hebrew monthly magazines *BaDerech* and *Mabat *.
In 1955, Nornberg founded a private law firm in Tel Aviv. The year 1972 marked a turning point in his life, when he abandoned the practice of law and devoted himself entirely to art.
The images that Nornberg had carried within him for so long emerged in his desire to make up for “lost time.” The contrasts that characterize his entire body of work reveal a genuine disconnect between two worlds: the world of his childhood and youth, so cruelly interrupted by World War II, and the “new world,” the modern world of cultural and political rebirth in Israel. Nornberg’s work affirms life, yet it cannot ignore the entire world turned upside down by the war. The passage of time has sharpened and intensified the artist’s need to bear witness, to fight against oblivion, to leave traces, and to revive the ashes of a bygone world, whose music continued to resonate in his soul many years after it had fallen silent.
Simcha Nornberg (1918–2000)
Love Scene
ink on paper, 21.2 x 19.5 cm
signed and inscribed lower right: NORNBERG | “That’s a bit like me,” but with a beard
He was born in Nowy Brzesk, the son of Hadassa and Natan, into a poor, religious family. He received a traditional education at a cheder and the Talmud Torah.
Nornberg graduated in 1937 from HaGymnasia HaIvrit in Kraków, where he began painting. He also began studying law at Jagiellonian University, playing a leading role in Zionist movements. At the start of World War II, he moved to the eastern part of Poland, which was under Soviet control, and organized Zionist youth in Lviv. In 1940, Nornberg was declared an “enemy of the people” and sentenced to imprisonment and hard labor in Soviet labor camps, where he refused to work on Yom Kippur. His paintings, created for the wife of a prisoner-of-war camp commander, saved his life. Most of his family remained in the German-occupied part of Poland and perished in the Holocaust. His older sister, Genia Weinstein, was saved by Oskar Schindler.
Nornberg returned to Poland in 1946, where he became involved in Zionist politics and educational activities. He founded the first Hebrew school in Katowice and actively helped Jewish survivors emigrate to the Land of Israel. He took up painting again, depicting mainly landscapes of small Jewish towns and villages destroyed during the war. His Zionist activities put his life at risk, and he was forced to flee Poland. After a brief stay in Paris, he emigrated to Israel with his family in 1948 .
From 1949 to 1952, Nornberg actively participated in Israeli politics and public life. From 1952 to 1955, he was a member of the leadership of the World Jewish Congress. He edited the Hebrew monthly magazines *BaDerech* and *Mabat *.
In 1955, Nornberg founded a private law firm in Tel Aviv. The year 1972 marked a turning point in his life, when he abandoned the practice of law and devoted himself entirely to art.
The images that Nornberg had carried within him for so long emerged in his desire to make up for “lost time.” The contrasts that characterize his entire body of work reveal a genuine disconnect between two worlds: the world of his childhood and youth, so cruelly interrupted by World War II, and the “new world,” the modern world of cultural and political rebirth in Israel. Nornberg’s work affirms life, yet it cannot ignore the entire world turned upside down by the war. The passage of time has sharpened and intensified the artist’s need to bear witness, to fight against oblivion, to leave traces, and to revive the ashes of a bygone world, whose music continued to resonate in his soul many years after it had fallen silent.
