Portrait of the Art Historian Peter Selz. Signed. (Original drawing)

Circa 1989 . Crayon on paper. 14 x 11 inches. Signed in the image. Folded once. From the collection of the art historian, Peter Selz.After working with sculptors in his native Israel, Kadishman went to London in 1959, where he came under the influence of Anthony Caro at Saint Martin’s School of Art. By the mid-1960s, he had established an international reputation for suspended sculptures that were gestural and full of dynamic tension. In some of his best-known works from this period, Kadishman attached glass or plastic sheets to wood or metal forms so that the mass seemed to float freely in space. Suspended represents his interest in such perceptual ambiguities. It is also a transitional work; by the late 1970s Kadishman began to focus on nature, particularly on tree and forest themes, and worked on an environmental scale. Eight Positive Trees reveals this ongoing fascination, which harkens back to his youth, when, like many other Israeli children, he planted trees throughout the new country. Kadishman’s “negative” forms of stylized trees cut out from sheets of weathering steel were exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 1978. The viewer could see through the empty tree-shaped spaces, as well as walk through them to encounter the landscape. The steel silhouettes of Storm King’s Eight Positive Trees are the shapes cut out from the trees exhibited in Venice. In contrast to their negative counterparts, the silhouetted shapes suggest both solid trees and shadows.