Gershon Iskowitz

It is somewhat difficult to reconcile Gershon Iskowitz's (1921–1988) aesthetic with his personal history. Born to a religious family in Poland, Iskowitz was allowed to leave yeshiva (a Jewish seminary) to study art, including a brief stint at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. The outbreak of the Second World War forced him to return to his hometown, where he was conscripted to forced labor. Iskowitz was transferred to Buchenwald in 1944, one of the first and most notorious Nazi concentration camps.

Upon liberation, Iskowitz spent nearly nine months in hospital recuperating. Amazingly, he would study for six months at the Academy of Fine Art in Munich with Oskar Kokoschka. He soon immigrated to Canada and by the 1960s had established a modest reputation. Legend goes that in 1967, thanks to a Canadian Council grant, Iskowitz took a helicopter tour of the north. The experience of seeing the massive expanse of trees from above inspired a major redirection of his aesthetic and approach.