Background
Arturo Schwarz was born on February 2, 1924, in Alexandria, Al Iskandariyah, Egypt to the family of Richard Schwarz and Rita Vitta. The family was of Jewish origin - his father was from Germany and mother from Italy.
American University, Cairo, Al Qahirah, Egypt
Arturo Schwarz received a diploma from American University at Cairo in 1942.
Alexandria University, Alexandria, Al Iskandariyah, Egypt
Arturo Schwarz conducted his postgraduate work at Farouk University (now Alexandria University) in 1943-1944.
Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Arturo Schwarz received an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University in 1996.
("To be a painter for the sake of being a painter was neve...)
"To be a painter for the sake of being a painter was never the ultimate aim of my life. That's why I tried to go into different forms of activity - purely optical things and kineticism". When Gabrielle Buffet discovered Duchamp's Rotoreliefs, she emphasized this point further: "Duchamp's aim was to primarily to modify all plastic matter, to reject once and for all from his working arsenal all the traditional tools and equipment (tubes of paint, canvas, and brushes); to obtain the effect by mechanical means instead of through the expression of personal dynamism inherent in a particular individuality; to substitute technical value for expressive value".
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0929445066/?tag=2022091-20
1969
(This remarkable and groundbreaking study explores the aut...)
This remarkable and groundbreaking study explores the author's view that there is a close correspondence between the basic tenets of alchemy and those of Jewish esoteric tradition, generally known as Kabbalah. The author, Arturo Schwarz, points out that both alchemy and Kabbalah are frequently distorted in popular as well as scholarly literature. The real concern of alchemy is not to transmute lead into gold, but rather, through the investigation of the self, to evolve from the state of ignorance (symbolized by lead) to that of awareness (symbolized by gold). As Schwarz points out, "this drive toward self-awareness is also basic in the teachings of the major kabbalists." Schwarz goes on to explain that in both systems "one of the major instruments of understanding our inner self is love, both physical and spiritual." Through a careful analysis of the use of sexual imagery in both systems, Schwarz builds his fascinating and eye-opening thesis that alchemy and kabbalistic tradition share profound similarities.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765761580/?tag=2022091-20
2001
(Guide to Vera, Silvia, and Arturo Schwarz Collection of D...)
Guide to Vera, Silvia, and Arturo Schwarz Collection of Dada and Surrealist Art in the Israel Museum, for touring exhibition. 2002.
https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Open-Eyes-Collection-Surrealist/dp/9652782580/?tag=2022091-20
2001
critic educator historian writer author poet
Arturo Schwarz was born on February 2, 1924, in Alexandria, Al Iskandariyah, Egypt to the family of Richard Schwarz and Rita Vitta. The family was of Jewish origin - his father was from Germany and mother from Italy.
Arturo Schwarz received a diploma from American University at Cairo in 1942. He conducted his postgraduate work at Farouk University (now Alexandria University) in 1943-1944. Schwarz received an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Tel Aviv University in 1996.
In the art world, Arturo Schwarz is well known as an art historian, essayist, poet, lecturer, curator, exhibition organizer, and champion of surrealist art. In the English-speaking art world, he is best known for books on two of Surrealism’s most famous artists: Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray.
In 1949 Arturo Schwarz was expelled from Egypt. In 1952 he settled in Milan, where he opened an independent art publishing house. In 1961 Schwartz converted his place into a gallery, organizing exhibitions of Dada and Surrealist artists. The gallery officially closed in 1975, and Schwarz started working as curator and writer, writing extensive publications on the work of Marcel Duchamp, as well as books and numerous essays on the Kabbalah, Tantrism, alchemy, prehistoric and tribal art, and Asian art and philosophy.
Schwarz is also an important art collector. In particular, he has owned numerous works by Marcel Duchamp, André Breton, Man Ray, Jean Arp, and others, especially Dadaists and Surrealists. He was the first, in his book on Man Ray, to reveal his real name.
Arturo Schwarz is a member of the board of governors of Tel Aviv University, the Bodalerle Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. He is a founding member and honorary fellow of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, as well as a founding member of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
In February 2014, Arturo Schwarz published a collection of poems entitled L'amore a novant'ann (Love at 90).
(This remarkable and groundbreaking study explores the aut...)
2001(Guide to Vera, Silvia, and Arturo Schwarz Collection of D...)
2001("To be a painter for the sake of being a painter was neve...)
1969(Artwork by Menashe Kadisman. Contributions by Ulrich Schn...)
1999Schwartz early on was a supporter of the Zionist movement. In 1946 he was a co-founder of the Egyptian branch of the Trotskyist 4th International. He was arrested because of his political activities, released in 1949 and then moved to Milan in Italy.
Schwarz recalled that he also paid for his Trotskyist beliefs in Milan, this time because of the Italian Communist Party secretary, Palmiro Togliatti. After obtaining a trust from the Committee to open a publishing house, in 1956 Schwarz published Lev Trockij's The Betrayed Revolution with a yellow band bearing the phrase "Stalin will go down in history as the executioner of the working class", so Togliatti contacted Raffaele Mattioli, director of the Committee, to ask him to remove the trust "from the Trotskyist-Fascist hyena Schwarz".
Arturo Schwartz became an aficionado of Dada, principally for the way it flouted conventional aesthetic and cultural values or “liberated the creative process from the shackles of rules and academism,” as he put it. In Dada’s counterpart, Surrealism, Schwartz “discovered a philosophy of life whose cardinal points - love, freedom, and poetry - coincided with my own.”
“I have thus never seen myself as an ‘art collector,’ but rather as a convinced Surrealist, keen to acquire the works which were inspired by my own convictions,” Schwartz declared.
“When the Iraqi missiles started falling on Tel Aviv, my reaction was to donate my whole collection of Dada and Surrealist periodicals and illustrated publications, for which the Getty Foundation had offered me a fabulous sum, to the Israel Museum,” Schwartz said.
Arturo Schwarz donated part of his collection of works of art, especially dadaist and surrealist, to the museums of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and to the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome (1997). In 1998 he donated his collection of 700 pieces of works of art to the Museum of Israel of Jerusalem.
Arturo Schwarz married Vera Zavatarelli on July 21, 1951, with whom he had a daughter Silvia. Zavatarelli died in May 1984. Schwarz married Rita Magnanini on February 1, 1986.