![- [ ] Gershon Iskowitz (1921-1988)
Violet Deep - 1
Oil, 38” x 70”](http://canadianfinearts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-03-at-1.45.05-PM.webp)
Gershon Iskowitz (1921-1988)
Violet Deep – 1
Oil, 38” x 70”
Artist Origin: Canadian artist born in Kielce, Poland; immigrated to Toronto in 1949
Artist Type: Painter and draughtsman; Holocaust survivor and witness; Landscape and Abstract Expressionist painter; Key figure in post-war Canadian abstraction
Born: November 24, 1919 (Kielce, Poland)
Died: January 26, 1988 (Toronto, Ontario)
Gershon Iskowitz (1919–1988) is one of Canada’s most luminous voices in post-war painting: a survivor, a dreamer, and a creator of transcendent light. Born in Kielce, Poland, he endured the horrors of Nazi concentration camps — experiences he rendered in haunting early drawings. After immigrating to Toronto in 1949, he transformed his trauma into a new life: gradually shifting from figurative memory-works to landscapes, and finally to radiant abstractions suffused with light, air, and colour. In each painting he sought to reconcile suffering with beauty, finding in the Canadian landscape — north skies, boreal horizons, aerial views — a new geography of hope and renewal. His work invites contemplation and affirms the power of art to heal, transcend, and reinvent.
Gershon Iskowitz: Life & Work — by Ihor Holubizky (published by Art Canada Institute).
This monograph remains the most authoritative, comprehensive scholarly study of Iskowitz’s life and oeuvre. It traces his evolution from Holocaust memory-painter to master of landscape abstraction — essential reading to understand the historical, emotional and stylistic depth behind his works and to assess their significance and value in a collection context.
