Albert Almoznino ( he, אלברט אלמוזנינו; March 3, 1923 – April 7, 2020) was an Israeli hand shadow artist. He gained international recognition in the years 1958-1975 when he performed his hand shadow skills in front of thousands of people at
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
,
Paris Olympia
The Olympia (; commonly known as L'Olympia or in the English-speaking world as Olympia Hall) is a concert venue in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France, located at 28 Boulevard des Capucines, equally distancing Madeleine church and Opéra G ...
,
Reno
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
, "
The Ed Sullivan Show
''The Ed Sullivan Show'' is an American television program, television variety show that ran on CBS from June 20, 1948, to March 28, 1971, and was hosted by New York City, New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in Septembe ...
"
and other places.
Biography
Albert Almoznino was born in
Mogador (Essaouira),
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
in 1923. He immigrated to Israel when he was 25 years old. In his early years as a new citizen he was earning his money by teaching art in elementary school. In 1953 he became a lab technician at
Weizmann Institute of Science
The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli unive ...
and worked there, excluding the time spent on his performances abroad, until his retirement.
He performed only as an amateur until
Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, impresario, sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the ''New York Daily News'' and the Chicago Tribune New York ...
discovered him in a group of artists organized in Israel. Sullivan first featured him on his television program in 1958 together with
Itzhak Perlman
Itzhak Perlman ( he, יצחק פרלמן; born August 31, 1945) is an Israeli-American violinist widely considered one of the greatest violinists in the world. Perlman has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that hav ...
,
Nechama Hendel
Nechama 'Nama' Hendel ( he, נחמה הנדל; 22 August 1936 – 30 September 1998) was an Israeli singer.
She began in the IDF Nahal music troupe, and came out of the Tsahal music scene in the 1950s, first in the duet "Ran veNama" – with ...
and more talented young Israelis. At that tour he was guest artist in several more TV shows like "
What's My Line?
''What's My Line?'' is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebrity panelis ...
" and "
To Tell the Truth". In 1965-1971 he went on tours at
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and
Reno, Nevada
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
to perform at the great music halls like
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...
and
Paris Olympia
The Olympia (; commonly known as L'Olympia or in the English-speaking world as Olympia Hall) is a concert venue in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France, located at 28 Boulevard des Capucines, equally distancing Madeleine church and Opéra G ...
.
In 1975 he was performing in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
together with
Yehoram Gaon
Yehoram Gaon ( he, יהורם גאון, born December 28, 1939) is an Israeli singer, actor, director, comedian, producer, TV and radio host, and public figure. He has also written and edited books on Israeli culture.
The son of Sephardic Jewish ...
and
Dudu Topaz
Dudu Topaz ( he, דודו טופז; September 20, 1946 – August 20, 2009) (born David Goldenberg) was an Israeli TV personality, comedian, actor, screenwriter, playwright, author and radio and television host. In August 2009 he committed suicid ...
. Since then he performed in many TV shows in Israel and in children's VCR tapes.
In addition to his hand shadow art, Almoznino is a well known Israeli painter and
stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
maker. He displayed his works in several exhibitions in
Rishon Lezion
Rishon LeZion ( he, רִאשׁוֹן לְצִיּוֹן , ''lit.'' First to Zion, Arabic: راشون لتسيون) is a city in Israel, located along the central Israeli coastal plain south of Tel Aviv. It is part of the Gush Dan metropolitan ar ...
, his home town,
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
, and
Ashdod
Ashdod ( he, ''ʾašdōḏ''; ar, أسدود or إسدود ''ʾisdūd'' or '' ʾasdūd'' ; Philistine: 𐤀𐤔𐤃𐤃 *''ʾašdūd'') is the sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District, it lies on the Mediterran ...
.
Almoznino died in April 2020 at the age of 97.
אמן הצלליות ממרוקו שכבש את
/ref>
Shadowgraphy
The art of making hand shadows — shadowgraphy — was popular in the 19th century. Shadow portraits of people's profiles (silhouettes) were even cut from dark paper and framed. The darkest, sharpest shadows are made using candlelight. When the electric light came into use shadowgraphy began to decline.
Almoznino in his performances revived this ancient art using only a small source light, a screen and his hands.
With his two bare hands he created profiles of animal
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Kingdom (biology), biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals Heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, are Motilit ...
s, plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...
s, American cultural characters like cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...
s, Native Americans, African Americans, and famous international politicians and celebrities.
His show featured orchestra music and short stories enacted by the characters to entertain the audience and make them laugh.
''The Art of Hand Shadows''
''The Art of Hand Shadows'' by Albert Almoznino explains and illustrates how to make the shadow characters that Almoznino created. The necessary equipment is only a source of light like a candle and a white wall or screen.
The characters in the book
* Animals like: monkey
Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...
, deer
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
, elephant
Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...
, wolf
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...
, birds, leopard
The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...
, rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...
, camel
A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...
, giraffe
The giraffe is a large African hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa''. It is the tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on Earth. Traditionally, giraffes were thought to be one species, ''Giraffa camelopardalis ...
and many more.
* Plants like: cactus
A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...
and flowers.
* Famous buildings like the Eiffel Tower and churches.
* Famous politicians like the US presidents from Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
to Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
. Other countries' leaders like David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
and Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-re ...
.
*
*
Gallery
Image:AALMOZNINO3.JPG, Swan
Further reading
*
See also
* Shadow play
Shadow play, also known as shadow puppetry, is an ancient form of storytelling and entertainment which uses flat articulated cut-out figures (shadow puppets) which are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-o ...
* Félicien Trewey
Félicien Trewey, born Félicien-François Trevey (23 May 1848 – 2 December 1920), was a French magician, mime, comedian, vaudevillian, tightrope walker, balance artist, dancer, musician, chapeaugraphist and shadowgraphist. The principal of T ...
External links
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Almoznino, Albert
1923 births
2020 deaths
Hand games
Israeli male painters
20th-century Moroccan Jews
Moroccan emigrants to Israel
People from Essaouira