Osias Hoffstatter

1905 - 1994

Osias Hoffstatter was born in Bochnia, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1905. He died in Ramat-Gan, Israel, 1994.

Following World War I, Hofstätter's family moved from Galicia to Vienna, then to Amsterdam and eventually to Frankfurt. 

In 1921, the family returned to Vienna, where they settled permanently. Hofstätter worked as an accountant, cocoa trader and a merchant of other items. In 1938, after the Anschluss, the Gestapo arrested his parents. Osias along with his brother and sister managed to escape, to separate destinations. Ben-Zion and Fradl, his parents, were deported to the Lodz Ghetto, where they were murdered in June 1942. 

Osias escaped to Belgium, where he was reunited with his fiancée, Anna Schebestova; they married in Brussels in November 1938. In 1939, due to severe financial difficulties, they moved to the Marneffe refugee camp, established by the local committee for Jewish refugees in Belgium. After Belgium's capitulation in May 1940, Hofstätter was arrested and transported to the St. Cyprien Camp in southern France, and from there to the Gurs Camp. And later a San Siberian concentration camp.

Throughout his incarceration in the various camps, Hofstätter focused on portraiture. While at Gurs, his sister sent him crayons and small sums of money, enabling him to buy art supplies. The portraits on display depict the despair and depression of his fellow inmates. These figurative portraits reflect the initial stage of Hofstätter's artistic career, before he developed his unique expressive style echoing his personal trauma as a survivor of the Holocaust.

Thanks to efforts made by his siblings, who had escaped to Switzerland, Hofstätter was released and escaped to Switzerland via the Alps in 1942. He was arrested by the Swiss border police, and transferred to a refugee camp. In 1943, with the help of the Unitarian Service Committee, he was released in order to attend an art school in Zürich.

A year after the end of the war, Hofstätter returned to Vienna, where he was reunited with his wife, and completed his studies at the Academy of Applied Arts. The couple moved to Warsaw in 1948, and immigrated to Israel in 1957. In Israel He worked as a teacher in a jewish orphanage and as a graphic designer for the youth newspaper. In 1957 he immigrated to Israel and settled in Holon. Up until 1970 he worked as a night guard. He then moved to Netanya where he was focused on creating his art. In his last days he lived in Ramat Gan.

Although he gained recognition relatively late, his works were displayed in numerous exhibitions in Israel and abroad.