Ariel Sharon Framed Wall Street Journal Original Hedcut Portrait ONE-OF-A-KIND

Description

Iconic hand drawn artwork created and used by the
Wall Street Journal
in its news coverage. One-of-a-kind portrait art. This artwork was purchased directly from the
WSJ
in an auction they held in 2002 and includes a Certificate of Authenticity.
Size: approximately 5-5/8" x 9-5/8".
Subject is
Ariel Sharon - 11th Prime Minister of Israel
Ariel Sharon (born Ariel Scheinermann, אריאל שיינרמן‎; 26 February 1928 – 11 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
Sharon was a commander in the Israeli Army from its creation in 1948. As a soldier and then an officer, he participated prominently in the 1948 Palestine war, becoming a platoon commander in the Alexandroni Brigadeand taking part in many battles, including Operation Bin Nun Alef. He was an instrumental figure in the creation of Unit 101 and the reprisal operations, as well as in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967, the War of Attrition, and the Yom-Kippur War of 1973. Yitzhak Rabin has called Sharon "the greatest field commander in our history".
Upon retirement from the military, Sharon entered politics, joining the Likud party, and served in a number of ministerial posts in Likud-led governments in 1977–92 and 1996–99. As Minister of Defense, he directed the 1982 Lebanon War. An official enquiry found that he bore "personal responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and recommended that he be removed as Defense Minister. His role in the massacre led to him being known as the "Butcher of Beirut" among Arabs.
From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Sharon championed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He became the leader of the Likud in 2000, and served as Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006. However, as Prime Minister, in 2004–05 Sharon orchestrated Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Facing stiff opposition to this policy within the Likud, in November 2005 he left Likud to form a new party, Kadima. He had been expected to win the next election and was widely interpreted as planning on "clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank", in a series of unilateral withdrawals. After suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006, Sharon remained in a permanent vegetative state until his death in January 2014.
Hedcut
('headine cut) is a term referring to a style of
drawing
, associated with
The Wall Street Journal
half-column portrait illustrations. They use the
stipple
method of many small dots and the
hatching
method of small lines to create an image, and are designed to emulate the look of
woodcuts
from old-style
newspapers
, and engravings on certificates and currency.
The Wall Street Journal adopted the current form of this portraiture in 1979. Today, there are five hedcut artists employed by The Wall Street Journal.
Each drawing takes between three and five hours to produce. These drawings are traditionally created at 18 by 31
picas
(3" by 5.167"), and then later reduced to fit the column size.
In 2002 the
Smithsonian Institution
acquired 66 original hedcut drawings and have put them on permanent display in the
National Portrait Gallery
.