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Rebbe Painting Wins High Honor at Art Show

A Far Rockaway artist’s likeness of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, ZT”L, won the top prize for oil paintings at the annual ArtSPLASH art show conducted by the Rockaway Artists Alliance.

Mrs. Laura Deckelman of Far Rockaway’s painting, “Rebbe With Lulov” – depicting Rabbi Schneerson, talis over his head, holding a lulov in preparation for celebrating the Succos holiday – took home the red ribbon signifying the best oil painting in the show at the honors judging held on Sunday, Sept. 16.

Numerous people attending the regional artists group’s big annual show at its gallery at the old Fort Tilden military base in the Rockaways said that they were impressed by the expressiveness seen in the Rebbe’s face, particularly in his piercing eyes, as captured in oil on canvas by Mrs. Deckelman – and the professional art judge brought in to scrutinize all of the dozens of various works on display apparently agreed, in awarding her work the top honors in the oil-painting category.

For Mrs. Deckelman – a long-time professional photographer who went back to school in the early 2000s to formally study painting – the award marks a milestone in a process that began in 2005, when she began doing paintings of the Rebbe at the suggestion of a good friend, Chaim Eliezer Abrams, a“h, who was a follower of the Rebbe; he suggested that he might be an interesting subject for one or more paintings. Tragically, Mr. Abrams passed away shortly after that, never living to see the culmination of Mrs. Deckelman’s efforts in this vein, ”Rebbe with Lulov.”

She began painting “Rebbe with Lulov” in 2006, continuing it in stages for more than a year, until late in 2007, when she felt it was finished. The painting sat with many other works she had painted on varied subjects, both religious and secular, for several years, until this summer, when Mrs. Deckelman decided to enter it into ArtSPLASH, the largest of the more than half a dozen shows mounted each year by the R.A.A, a community arts group based in Rockaway Park but whose membership includes artists from all over the New York metropolitan area.

Mrs. Deckelman says that it is her dream that her painting of the Rebbe will someday be in many Jewish homes and sukkahs in America, Israel and elsewhere in the world, and has reasonably-priced giclee prints on canvas or fine-art paper available for purchase.

Mrs. Deckelman’s can be reached at laura.deckelman@yahoo.com.

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18 Comments

  • art critic

    this face looks like zalman chanin (except beard), not like the rebbe at all. and an award for that? she can continue dreaming that lubavitchers will hang such a painting in their homes.

  • Mendel

    The face on this picture is the face of the woman in the photo. This picture has zero resemblance to the Rebbe.

  • Nice!

    This painting brings out beautiful character of the Rebbe. Also, the is now a resemblance to the Alter Rebbe!

  • minyaner

    Yeah…not to sound bad, but that does not look like THE REBBE… To be honest, I am a bit surprised that won, as it doesn’t bare any resemblance…it just looks like a old jew with a white beard.

  • Anon

    I agree with number two, there are very few people who can get the rebbes face right and she obviously isn’t one of them.

  • crown heights resident

    This is not a picture of the Rebbe. It is a nice painting of a good Jew. It is a good painting (much better than anything I could do) – but not the Rebbe

  • Naftoli

    An accomplished artist in Melbourne used the Rebbe in some of his paintings until he travelled to 770 and saw the Rebbe in person. After that time he refused to paint the Rebbe’s likeness as he said that he felt that, having actually seen the Rebbe, there was no way that he could do justice to his visage.

    Unfortunately the artist in this article, while obviously talented, has not done the Rebbe justice in this rendition.

  • Artist replies

    An artist picture is NOT a photograph. If you want “exact” likeness, hang up a photograph. An artist has “artistic license” to capture a dimension of character. The negative commentators should become a bit sophisticated after they finally graduate from the basic farming.

  • R- Shlomo In Eretz Yisroel

    It’s not because of the eyes. But everything else on target. The way the Talis lays on his heah. The lulov and the Hadsim. The hands are great. The beard and mustash are great. She has great talent.

  • Be fair

    if you would see this on a website or printed in a magazine with no article or caption accompanying it, would you immedietely think of the Rebbe? Case closed.