David Gerstein
1944– · Israeli painter, sculptor and printmaker, pioneer of laser cutting in art
David (Dudu) Gerstein, born in Jerusalem in 1944, is an Israeli painter, sculptor, draftsman and printmaker. He began as a figurative painter and, at the end of the 1970s, wanted to take two-dimensional painting into three dimensions: he cut out the main figures of his canvases and displayed them freestanding, without the square frame. This led him to sculpture, first in wood coated with industrial paint and later in laser-cut steel, a technique he pioneered in art and used for the first multi-layered steel wall sculptures.
His style blends primary colours and everyday subjects into a personal take on pop art, which he called second-generation pop art. From 1980 to 1995 he made mainly free-standing wooden sculptures. He was also deeply interested in public sculpture: he has created more than forty works in squares and plazas in Israel alone, and many large outdoor pieces in England, France, Sweden, Italy, China and South Korea. His outdoor sculpture "Momentum" is Singapore's tallest public sculpture.
He studied at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and Saint Martin's School of Art in London, where he specialised in printmaking. He later taught at Bezalel, where he helped bring jewellery design closer to contemporary art. His legacy lies in combining industrial techniques with public sculpture; in 2016 he received Taiwan's Artistic Creation Award.