Kosso Eloul

Eloul, Kosso
Kosso Eloul, sculptor (b at Mourom, USSR 22 Jan 1920; d at Toronto, Ont 8 Nov 1995). Eloul's art training started in Tel Aviv in 1938 and continued in 1939 at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied with Frank Lloyd Wright, and at the Chicago School of Design with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. After service in WWII and the War of Independence in Palestine, he returned to his art in 1948. In 1959 he represented Israel at the 29th Venice Biennale. After the First Sculpture Symposium in Yugoslavia in 1961, he set up a similar event in the Negev Desert in 1962; his lifelong involvement with international SCULPTURE conferences began then. He settled permanently in Toronto in 1969 and was the moving force behind the 10th Sculpture Conference held there in 1978.

Eloul's characteristic monumental sculptures grace the public spaces of many Canadian cities. His gleaming rectangles of highly polished aluminum or stainless steel are balanced precariously at unusual angles, testing and probing the laws of gravity. Although usually described as minimalist, their inherent energy and restless potential for movement transcend the contemplative minimalist sensibility.

Author CLARA HARGITTAY