On March 5, friends and family gathered at Maurice Kaplan’s graveside to mark the first anniversary of his death.

By the time he came on aliyah with his wife Babette and their daughters in 1962, Maurice had already made his mark as a gifted young architect, as noted in “Johannesburg Style – Architecture and Society 1880-1960” (Clive Chipkin;1993). When he retired some four decades later, his life’s work in the field of architecture covered a range of outstanding public and private projects that included beautiful homes, the French Hill quarter in Jerusalem, the Bet Daniel Community Center and the Amit Hotel in Tel Aviv, the Nova Hotel and the landmark underwater aquarium in Eilat, to mention only a few.

Meanwhile, modestly, almost shyly, Maurice began to make pen and ink drawings of the subject he knew best – houses, followed by a tentative series of line drawings of human subjects. The garden of his house in Neve Magen gave him luscious tropical shapes and colors. From there, confidence gained, he burst into the richness of his artistic maturity using and innovating techniques and materials in an intense communication with nature. Exhibitions of his work attracted increasing interest among art lovers and buyers. Sadly, his health began to fail during these years of artistic growth, but alongside the physical decline a gentleness emerged in the man whose most striking characteristic in his early and middle years was his dynamic, often irascible presence. A mystical ambience was now evident and increasingly expressed through his bold rendition of the luxuriant foliage and sturdy trunks of trees. His last painting was of a tree in full leaf, freed from earth, ascending. A stunning, spiritual statement.