Biography
Schwebel was born in West Virginia in 1932 and raised in Georgia, then in the Bronx, N.Y. He studied acting for two years with Stanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse before serving in the U.S. Army in Japan, from 1953 to 1955. There he started drawing and painting under the Zen master Kimura Kyoen in Kyoto - a period that had a profound impact on his art. Upon his return to New York, Schwebel studied art history for six years, first at New York University and then in the Institute of Fine Arts, painting whenever possible. His efforts were supported by friendships with Rube Kadish, sculptor, and Philip Guston, who was at the time in the process of rejecting his own abstract expressionism.
In 1962, Schwebel left the university to travel in Europe. The following year he arrived in Israel, where he found and restored a house in Ein Karem, an Arab deserted village on the outskirts of Jerusalem where he and his family have lived ever since. From then on, responding to his environment - whether the Judean hills, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or New York - became a major force in his painting. He combined actual modern-day surroundings with extensive personal experience, including drawings done while on an artillery gun in Yom Kippur War, or paintings of "the Sealed Room" during the Gulf War.
Schwebel made recurring visits to New York, for his work on Houdini - the great self-liberator, who freed himself while hanging upside down over city streets; the three-sewer-hitter, the heroic stick-ball player of his youth in the Bronx; and the Dragon of the Parking Lot. Dragons always held a significant position in Schwebel's iconography, and paintings about The Dragon Who Would Be A Sculpture deal with the artist's view of modern sculpture.
His largest body of work is on David in the book of Samuel. Here he reflects on the land of Israel, its society and politics. The reflections grow in power as the Bible makes the journey from Jerusalem to New York. His first publication of these early works, The Arena of Jerusalem, (Tel Aviv, Modan, 1987), contained paintings linking the situations in the Bible to the war in Lebanon.
Schwebel's interest in his environment has led to the Free-Standing-Painting, a wall or series of walls, placed on various public locations and painted on both sides. Several have been constructed, including one at the Israel Museum, one in Tel Hai, another on his own hillside, and two unfinished walls in the entrance to Kibbutz Ein Gedi. He executed four seven-meter murals on the mythology of Tel Aviv. These are installed on the outer walls of the Hechal Hatarbut concert hall.
An affair with the city resulted in another book, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv!, (Tel Aviv, Modan, 1987). Here movie stars and romance, as for instance, Garbo and Barrymore in Grand Hotel, take over the streets. Schwebel's journals, which he kept for over fifty years, reinforce these works with reflection on his work-process and humor.
In the early 90's, Schwebel began working on the 500 year commemoration of the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain. His research led him to connect that history with the Holocaust; the paintings and historical documentation are combined in an unpublished book entitled The Inescapable.
In the early 2000's , Schwebel created various series dealing with both his personal process (The Models, Safe Place, Chaplin) and political and social situations (The Situation, Intifada, Hate).
Schwebel exhibited in all major Israeli museums, including The Israel Museum and the Tel Aviv, Tefen, Ramat Gan, Ein Harod, Yeshiva University NY, museums, and presently at the Herzlyia Museum of Contemporary Art. He also had numerous one-man shows in galleries in Israel and abroad.
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On July 2011, Schwebel passed away in Nahal Sorek (his Safe Place series location), Jerusalem.
"I was never obedient enough to accept the authority of a different stylistic discipline than my own. And undoubtedly, I was acquainted with my principle subjects from early youth. I am allowed therefore, to repurpose myself as I wish. I cannot return to the familiar place, the empty canvas ocean, and expect it to anchor me. I escape to my room to eat and drink, or whatever. My mountain slope is the ocean, the rock terraces are the waves, which in my despair, I transform to abundant female body shapes inspired by the classics, or the cinema." (Schwebel).