26 Facts About Moses Kottler

Moses Kottler was a South African painter and sculptor.

Moses Kottler is widely regarded, along with Anton van Wouw and Lippy Lipshitz, as one of the most important South African sculptors.

Moses Kottler, nicknamed Moshe, was the eighth child of Joseph Kottler and Zirla Solin.

Moses Kottler displayed manual dexterity and superior drawing ability from an early age.

Moses Kottler' remarkable manual dexterity soon came to the attention of an uncle, Haim Israel Sacks, who was a leading Zionist.

Moses Kottler took a photograph of a snowman Moses had created, and showed it to a sculptor Ilya Ginzburg while at a Zionist congress in Vilnius.

Moses Kottler was sent to the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, to study under Boris Schatz.

Moses Kottler's experience at the Bezalel School was a disappointment; he received no training in sculpture or painting at all.

Moses Kottler had Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl and Hugo von Habermann as his professors.

Moses Kottler had occasion to experience the work of these and other artists exhibiting in Europe's art second city.

Moses Kottler took a room on the Rue Servandoni, near the church of St Sulpice, with its murals by Eugene Delacroix.

Moses Kottler befriended Chana Orloff, Henri Epstein and sculptor Josef Tchaikow.

Moses Kottler occupied himself with his art on the farms Oude Muragie and Middelplaats, modelling and painting the rural population; producing 12 paintings and nine sculptures in the period 1915 to 1916.

Moses Kottler arrived in Cape Town in December 1916 to settle permanently.

The membership count in 1917 was 121, including Hendrik Pierneef, Anton van Wouw, Nita Spilhaus, Ruth Prowse, Florence Zerffi and Moses Kottler, who had joined that year.

In January 1917, Moses Kottler looked up DC Boonzaier, the cartoonist and art collector, on the advice of Nita Spilhaus, but was unable to show him anything more than photographs.

In early 1917 Moses Kottler was living in abject poverty, for want of commissions, and frequently unable to buy food.

Moses Kottler lived and worked in the Athenian Chambers in Shortmarket Street, in a room DC Boonzaier described as cheerless surroundings.

On 5 December 1918, Moses Kottler left for Oudtshoorn; a visit which had been greatly delayed by the influenza epidemic raging there.

Moses Kottler returned exactly two months later, on 5 February 1919.

Moses Kottler developed a furious passion for collecting Eastern Art; a passion he shared with Boonzaier.

Between 14 December 1920 and 4 January 1921, Moses Kottler staged his first Exhibition of Sculpture, held at Cape Town City Hall and opened by Sir Carruthers Beattie.

Moses Kottler had decided to make his career as a sculptor and very seldom painted after March 1918, never again after June 1924.

On 9 April 1921, Moses Kottler finished the bust of General Christiaan de Wet, for which he had travelled to Klipfontein, the General's farm in the Orange Free State.

In January 1929, Moses Kottler announced his intention to leave the Union of South Africa, provoking a furore in the Cape Times, Die Burger and The Cape, all local newspapers.

On his return to South Africa in 1932, Moses Kottler settled in Johannesburg.