Itzchak Tarkay, Israel's most important figurative painter and currently one of the world's most sought after and collected artists, will be featured at Southfield's Park West Gallery with a major exhibition of his work Oct. 26 through Nov. 21.

For the first time in eight years all 12 galleries at Park West will display the works of only one artist. The exhibition of nearly 200 works includes 68 paintings, 32 watercolors, 40 drawings and 56 hand-signed serigraphs. It constitutes Tarkay's largest one-man show to date. Collectors are being invited from throughout the United States and Canada as well as Europe and Israel.

Private receptions for the artist will be held on Friday and Saturday evenings, Oct. 25 and 26, at Park West. The exhibition formally opens on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 27, when the artist will be presented to the public.

Tarkay's works utilize classical principles of painting, drawing and color in an unmistakably new approach that has never been seen before. His compositions and ideas may be liked to impressionism, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Fauvists and his landscapes and figures to the works of Milton Avery. Tarkay says that Matisse was his major inspiration. His authorship and sensitive compositions, however, are unmistakably Tarkay.

Although Tarkay has been an artist for more than 30 years, in the short span of the past five years, an entire movement has developed from his work. His works may depict the teeming street life of Tel Aviv with it's sidewalk cafes and old Jaffa's narrow alleyways, marketplaces and boulevards, but underlying this we see the whole of modernism in art.

Tarkay was born in 1935 in Subotica on the Yugoslav-Hungarian border. He spent much of his childhood in the Nazi's Mathausen concentration camp. In 1949 his family migrated to Israel. His extraordinary artworks depict his dedication, sensitivity and outstanding talent. "He is one of a very important group of artists with European roots working in Isreal at this time and certainly the major Israeli figure painter of our time…we are fortunate to have this largest and most important exhibition of his work yet to date," says Grosse Pointe resident Albert Scaglione, president of Park West Gallery.

Tarkay's one-person exhibitions from 1988-90 include the cities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Dusseldorf, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, London and Tokyo. His works are featured in many Israeli embassies as well as in numerous public collections throughout the world.

Park West Gallery is located at 29469 Northwestern in Southfield. The Gallery is open every day during the following hours: Monday-Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For further information phone 354-2343.