Each year, an expert panel of Sotheby's auction house choses one noteworthy artwork by an independent artist exhibiting at the Fresh Paint Greenhouse. The work is offered for sale at the Sotheby's international and Israeli art auction in New York the following December. All expenses are paid by Sotheby's and all proceeds go to the artist. 


Fresh Paint 4's Under the Hammer choice


Ido Abramson 


In the Sotheby's international and Israeli art auction in New York on December 2011, independent artist Ido Abramson's photograph 'Welcome to Lebanon#1', was sold for $ 5,300 (pre-sale estimate: $2,000-3,000). All other copies of this edition were previously sold during Fresh Paint 4 (April 2011) for 7,000 NIS (~$1,800).

The panel stated: "Abramson photographs blow out of proportion resin models manufactured by western companies, which are used to construct amateur dioramas, thus presenting them in new light. The costume-made models of Israeli soldiers, Palestinian citizens or street objects, are ordered catalog images that feed on a collective media imagery and popular culture."

The prize committee members were Sigal Mordechai, Managing Director of Sotheby's Israeli,  Rivka Saker, Chairman Sotheby's in Israel, Daria Gluck, Sotheby's expert on Israeli art, Sonya Beckerman, Sotheby's, New York. 

Fresh Paint 3's Under the Hammer choice

Tal Amitai, 'Direct Hit - or - The House on Nahalal St., Haifa'.

The panel recognized Tal Amitai's ability to “create a moving and fragile piece about the destruction and the disintegration of the Israeli family dream through the image of a house in Haifa that was destroyed during the Second Lebanon War. The composition is composed of strips of black thread, and by simulating the act of tapestry and sewing the artist instills in us the hope that the house is being sewn together and can be re-built."

The panel members were Sigal Mordechai, Managing Director of Sotheby's Israeli,  Daria Gluck, Sotheby's expert on Israeli art, Sonya Beckerman, Director of  Sotheby's New York's Russian art department,Jennifer Roth, senior expert on international modern art, Sotheby's New York, and Saul Ingram, Managing Director of Contemporary Art for Sotheby's Europe.

Fresh Paint 2's Under the Hammer choice

Aviv Naveh, 'Sinai'.

The photograph "Sinai" by artist Aviv Naveh was declared winner of the Under the Hammer award. This piece was chosen from among some 1,500 works by young independent artists who exhibited at the fair. Copies from that printing were sold at the fair for about 6,000 NIS (about $1,600) each. The copy which was auctioned off at Sotheby's Israeli art auction in December 2009 sold for $5,300.