Untitled (Sabbath Bride)
Номер объектаM2025/082:001
НазваниеUntitled (Sabbath Bride)
Создатель Perle Hessing (artist)
ОписаниеPearl Hessing, Untitled, Oil on canvas, unsigned and undated.
The composition is set inside a domestic interior which opens to the outside through a large window. The scene depicts religious observation where allegory and reality appear to coexist. Hessing presents a multi-layered scene with symbolic and narrative detail, painted in her characteristically naïve style. In the centre lies a reclining woman dressed in a white gown with veil and floral crown. Beside her, a woman in blue touching her eye (in prayer? to wipe tears?). Men with head coverings read, hold, or carry prayer books, and a ‘shabbat’ prayerbook is on the table filled with fruit, a fish, wine goblets and a wine decanter. The space is filled with domestic and symbolic objects: a clock, bookshelves, Judaica, a bouquet of white flowers. Beyond the window is a cemetery with tombstones engraved in Hebrew. A strange spirit-like figure holds the hand of the ‘Sabbath bride’. The reclining woman may be an allegorical figure for the Shabbat Kallah (the Sabbath Bride) from Jewish mystical and liturgical tradition, welcomed into the home on Friday evening.
Self-taught, naive-style painter, Perle Hessing, draws on her Jewish faith, childhood memories, and personal story of survival. Born in 1908 in Poland, later settling in Australia in 1951, she began painting in her fifties, encouraged by Desiderius Orban (1884-1986), a Hungarian-Australian painter and art teacher. Her work is inspired by biblical stories from the Old Testament, folklore of shtetl life, Jewish rituals, as well as lived experience as a migrant. Her art is symbolic, blending narrative with personal and collective memory. Perle is the mother of artist Leonard Hessing (1931-2004), who was part of Australia's abstract expressionists. Keen to see how he might succeed in Europe, he ended up in London. She moved to the UK in circa 1973 where she died in 2001. In 2023, a collection of 24 paintings was generously donated to the Sydney Jewish Museum by her grandson, Theo Hessing.
The composition is set inside a domestic interior which opens to the outside through a large window. The scene depicts religious observation where allegory and reality appear to coexist. Hessing presents a multi-layered scene with symbolic and narrative detail, painted in her characteristically naïve style. In the centre lies a reclining woman dressed in a white gown with veil and floral crown. Beside her, a woman in blue touching her eye (in prayer? to wipe tears?). Men with head coverings read, hold, or carry prayer books, and a ‘shabbat’ prayerbook is on the table filled with fruit, a fish, wine goblets and a wine decanter. The space is filled with domestic and symbolic objects: a clock, bookshelves, Judaica, a bouquet of white flowers. Beyond the window is a cemetery with tombstones engraved in Hebrew. A strange spirit-like figure holds the hand of the ‘Sabbath bride’. The reclining woman may be an allegorical figure for the Shabbat Kallah (the Sabbath Bride) from Jewish mystical and liturgical tradition, welcomed into the home on Friday evening.
Self-taught, naive-style painter, Perle Hessing, draws on her Jewish faith, childhood memories, and personal story of survival. Born in 1908 in Poland, later settling in Australia in 1951, she began painting in her fifties, encouraged by Desiderius Orban (1884-1986), a Hungarian-Australian painter and art teacher. Her work is inspired by biblical stories from the Old Testament, folklore of shtetl life, Jewish rituals, as well as lived experience as a migrant. Her art is symbolic, blending narrative with personal and collective memory. Perle is the mother of artist Leonard Hessing (1931-2004), who was part of Australia's abstract expressionists. Keen to see how he might succeed in Europe, he ended up in London. She moved to the UK in circa 1973 where she died in 2001. In 2023, a collection of 24 paintings was generously donated to the Sydney Jewish Museum by her grandson, Theo Hessing.
ТемаJewish life, Jewish artists, , family life
Наименованиеpaintings
Размерность
- width: 1210.00 mm
height: 900.00 mm
Кредитная линияSydney Jewish Museum collection, donated by Theo Hessing.
In appreciation to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) for supporting this archival project.