In his series of landscapes, of which the current lot is an example, Israeli-born Ori Gersht photographed sites that bore witness to the tragedies of the WWII. As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, Gersht’s interest in the sites is not incidental, for it allows him to trace his own existence to a crucial point in his family’s history. However, in lieu of depicting any didactic insignia of the war, Gersht turned his lens to the flora that has grown at the site since the war. By carefully eliminating most of the color from the field of flowers, Gersht poetically alludes to the passing of time as well as the incomprehensible loss of life that took place, while the hints of color strategically scattered about remind viewers of human survival, resilience and hope. Indeed, Elephant I is a loving memorial to those who have come before us.

Gersht’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Tel Aviv Museum, Israel; Tate Britain, London; Imperial War Museum, London; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Centro Andaluz de la Fotografía, Almeria, Spain; and the Musée d’Art de Toulon, France, among others.