Shmuel Alexander (Sandor) Katz was born in Vienna, Austria, to parents of
Hungarian origin. Following the Anschluss, Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany
in March 1938, the family relocated to Hungary. He attended school, studied the
piano, and became a member of the Zionist youth movement HaNoar HaTzioni. After
the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944, he was deported to a forced labor camp in
Yugoslavia from which he escaped to Budapest where he was among the thousands of
Jews hidden in the "Glass House" shelter operated by Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz,
until the arrival of the Soviet Red Army in mid-February 1945.
In Budapest, Katz joined the youth movement
Hashomer Hatzair. He began studying architecture there in the Budapest
University of Technology and Economics. In 1946, in the framework of the Aliyah
Bet illegal immigration, he sailed aboard the Knesset Israel which was
apprehended by the British and its passengers interned in a detention camp on Cyprus.
In 1947, Katz secured a legal immigration certificate as a
member of the “First of May” nucleus group of Hashomer Hatzair. The group did
its pioneering training at Kibbutz Eilon on the Lebanese border, and on October
8, 1948, became the founders of Kibbutz Ga'aton in the Western Galilee, where
Katz spent the rest of his life. He designed the kibbutz dining room whose
interior features Hungarian folkloristic wood carving.
During the years 1950–1953 Shemuel Katz
illustrated Mishmar Layeladim, the weekly children’s supplement to the Mapam
party’s newspaper, Al HaMishmar. In 1953–1954, he enrolled in the École
nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, where he studied
lithography, copperplate etching, fresco, and music, and toured the lands of
Western Europe. In 1955, he joined the editorial board of Al HaMishmar as
illustrator and graphics editor. In 1958, he traveled through East Africa, a
journey whose impressions influenced his artistic and technical style and led to
the 1962 publication of A Journey to the Land of Kush together with author
Nathan Shaham. In 1976 he visited Iran, and the following November in Tehran
exhibited artworks featuring Iran and Jerusalem. In 1979, Katz paid two visits
to Egypt with the “Autonomy” delegation and was granted a private interview with
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. In 1983, he visited Hungary as a member of a
delegation from Peace Now.
Shemuel Katz’s artworks have been
exhibited extensively in Israel and abroad. His watercolors of Jerusalem have
been reproduced as posters and postcards. His courtroom sketches of Adolf
Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, 1961, are held in the art collection of Yad
Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Authority. As an artist in the IDF, he
sketched soldiers on guard and at war. Katz is well known as the illustrator of
hundreds of books, especially for Sifriat Poalim, the Kibbutz Artzi movement's
publishing house. Especially popular are his illustrated classics of Israeli
children’s literature, such as Igeal Mozinsohn’s Hasamba series and poet Leah
Goldberg’s Flat for Rent, whose cover art was used for a postage stamp.
Katz published editorial cartoons and illustrations in the
Israeli dailies Al HaMishmar, and Maariv, the weekly kibbutz supplement of the
mass-circulation Yedioth Aharonoth, as well as the Swiss satirical periodical,
Nebelspalter.
Katz died of a stroke aged 83 in hospital in Nahariya, Israel. He is survived by his wife Naomi and two
daughters, one of whom, Yael, is married to leftist politician Dov Khenin.
Awards and honors
1959 – Medal at the International Exhibition of Book Art, Leipzig, Germany
1961 – First prize in Drawing and Watercolor of the Biennale for Young Artists, Paris, France
1974 – Nordau Prize for Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
1985 – Nachum Gutman Memorial Award of the Tel Aviv municipality
1997 – International Award for Caricature, Budapest, Hungary
2006 – “Dosh” Memorial Award for Caricature, Einav Center, Tel Aviv
2007 – First “Golden Pencil” Award of the Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comic Art, Holon, Israel
Hungarian origin. Following the Anschluss, Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany
in March 1938, the family relocated to Hungary. He attended school, studied the
piano, and became a member of the Zionist youth movement HaNoar HaTzioni. After
the Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944, he was deported to a forced labor camp in
Yugoslavia from which he escaped to Budapest where he was among the thousands of
Jews hidden in the "Glass House" shelter operated by Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz,
until the arrival of the Soviet Red Army in mid-February 1945.
In Budapest, Katz joined the youth movement
Hashomer Hatzair. He began studying architecture there in the Budapest
University of Technology and Economics. In 1946, in the framework of the Aliyah
Bet illegal immigration, he sailed aboard the Knesset Israel which was
apprehended by the British and its passengers interned in a detention camp on Cyprus.
In 1947, Katz secured a legal immigration certificate as a
member of the “First of May” nucleus group of Hashomer Hatzair. The group did
its pioneering training at Kibbutz Eilon on the Lebanese border, and on October
8, 1948, became the founders of Kibbutz Ga'aton in the Western Galilee, where
Katz spent the rest of his life. He designed the kibbutz dining room whose
interior features Hungarian folkloristic wood carving.
During the years 1950–1953 Shemuel Katz
illustrated Mishmar Layeladim, the weekly children’s supplement to the Mapam
party’s newspaper, Al HaMishmar. In 1953–1954, he enrolled in the École
nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, where he studied
lithography, copperplate etching, fresco, and music, and toured the lands of
Western Europe. In 1955, he joined the editorial board of Al HaMishmar as
illustrator and graphics editor. In 1958, he traveled through East Africa, a
journey whose impressions influenced his artistic and technical style and led to
the 1962 publication of A Journey to the Land of Kush together with author
Nathan Shaham. In 1976 he visited Iran, and the following November in Tehran
exhibited artworks featuring Iran and Jerusalem. In 1979, Katz paid two visits
to Egypt with the “Autonomy” delegation and was granted a private interview with
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. In 1983, he visited Hungary as a member of a
delegation from Peace Now.
Shemuel Katz’s artworks have been
exhibited extensively in Israel and abroad. His watercolors of Jerusalem have
been reproduced as posters and postcards. His courtroom sketches of Adolf
Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem, 1961, are held in the art collection of Yad
Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Authority. As an artist in the IDF, he
sketched soldiers on guard and at war. Katz is well known as the illustrator of
hundreds of books, especially for Sifriat Poalim, the Kibbutz Artzi movement's
publishing house. Especially popular are his illustrated classics of Israeli
children’s literature, such as Igeal Mozinsohn’s Hasamba series and poet Leah
Goldberg’s Flat for Rent, whose cover art was used for a postage stamp.
Katz published editorial cartoons and illustrations in the
Israeli dailies Al HaMishmar, and Maariv, the weekly kibbutz supplement of the
mass-circulation Yedioth Aharonoth, as well as the Swiss satirical periodical,
Nebelspalter.
Katz died of a stroke aged 83 in hospital in Nahariya, Israel. He is survived by his wife Naomi and two
daughters, one of whom, Yael, is married to leftist politician Dov Khenin.
Awards and honors
1959 – Medal at the International Exhibition of Book Art, Leipzig, Germany
1961 – First prize in Drawing and Watercolor of the Biennale for Young Artists, Paris, France
1974 – Nordau Prize for Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
1985 – Nachum Gutman Memorial Award of the Tel Aviv municipality
1997 – International Award for Caricature, Budapest, Hungary
2006 – “Dosh” Memorial Award for Caricature, Einav Center, Tel Aviv
2007 – First “Golden Pencil” Award of the Israeli Museum of Caricature and Comic Art, Holon, Israel