Post date: Feb 27, 2012 10:19:51 PM
A forgotten mural by artist Marcel Janco is uncovered on his studio wall.
REUTERS / JANCO DADA MUSEUM HANDOUT / ELI SHALTIEL HANDOUT - This mural by famed Dada artist Marcel Janco is seeing the light of day for the first time in half a century.
The discovery of the mural came as the Janco Dada museum in Israel began a restoration project of Janco's art studio in the village of Ein Hod.
Eli Shaltiel is performing the restoration work and discovered the mural behind a layer of plaster.
Mural Restorer, Eli Shaltiel, saying (Hebrew):
"I suddenly reached a black dot, I continued to expose it further and we realized it is in fact a line. I continued following that line that day, following it wherever it will take me. I already realized it is a painting and was very excited. At the end of the day I exposed a fragment of about 30X30 centimeter, showing some kind of shape made of lines. Retroactively it was a knee and a small part of a breast."
Janco was born in Bucharest in 1895 and adopted an art movement known as "Dada"-- an anti-conformist style that encouraged the use of irrational ideas.
In 1941, he moved to Israel and formed a close-knit community of artists in the village.
Museum curator Raya Zommer-Tal says Janco plastered over the mural himself.
Director and Curator of the Janco Dada Museum in Ein Hod, Raya Zomemr-Tal, saying
"It wasn't done as something that a museum should exhibit it. And this is a different kind of a work of art, that you do and you know that you are going to demolish it. And we also found protocols about it, because there was a time that they wanted to leave it, but Janco said 'no, I don't mind. I am an artist but it's ok to repaint a work of art."
It's believed more murals are hidden under layers of paint, which will further reveal Janco's off-beat humor, such as painting a face on human buttocks.
Andrew Schmertz, Reuters.