1951 — Life on Kibbutz (Yehiam), Joseph Zaritsky
The desire to be part of the greater art world and adopt a more universal style and range of themes led Joseph Zaritsky (1891-1985) to found what became the New Horizons school of Israeli art….
1952 – Mother and Child – Memorial to Chana Tuchman Adlerstein, Chana Orloff
Chana Orloff (1888-1968), born in Russia, immigrated with her parents to Petach Tikvah in 1905 and went to Paris in 1910 to study fashion design. She pursued a degree in art and over time became…
1953 – Monument to the Defenders of Negba, Nathan Rapoport
Nathan Rapoport (1911-1987), born and raised in Warsaw, survived World War II in a labor camp in Siberia. As a member of Hashomer Hatzair, he initiated the Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was…
1953 – In an Immigrants’ Transit Camp, Ruth Schloss
After the State of Israel was declared, the countries of the Middle East where Jews had lived for generations expelled them. Some 500,000 immigrants came in the first three years, severely straining the fledgling state’s…
1958 — Might, Yosef Zaritsky
This massive painting by Yosef Zaritsky (1891-1985) was given primacy of place at the First Decade Exhibit held at Binyanei HaUma, now known as Jerusualem’s International Convention Center. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion was heard to…
1960 – Fountain, Kosso Elul
The need for a new campus for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem after the loss of Mount Scopus in 1948 led to a search for an indigenous architectural design. The Canaanite school, which glorified the…
1961 – Ohel Yizkor, Yad Vashem’s Hall of Remembrance, designed by Arieh Elhanani, Arieh Sharon and Benjamin Idelson
This building is a mausoleum for those who lost their families in the Holocaust and who have no cemeteries to visit. Form and function join to create a powerful sculptural presence: outside, a brutalist concrete…
1964 – Agripas Street, Arie Aroch
Using oil, oil pencil and scratching and considered a seminal work, Agripas Street by Arie Aroch (1908-1974) represents an important trend in Israeli art of the 1960s: the move away from the colorist abstractions of…
1966 – Wall to the Glory of Jerusalem, Moshe Castel
Moshe Castel (1909-1991), born in Jerusalem, developed an unusual style and technique in his later years, using ground-up basalt in his works. This basalt relief in the reception hall of the President’s Residence often serves…
1966 – Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, Dani Karavan
The importance of Jerusalem in Israeli society receives prominence in this wall relief by Dani Karavan (1930-2021) right behind the podium of the Knesset Assembly Hall, made from Galilean stone. The title is taken from…
1966 – Flying Spice Box, Yossl Bergner
In his fanciful works, Yossl Bergner (1920-2017) often used objects to symbolize the human condition. In the foreground of this piece at the Mishkan Museum of Art in Ein Harod, the top of an ancient…
1966 – Peace Monument, Yigal Tumarkin
Many are the war memorials in Israel; in 1966, the peace activist Abie Nathan decided there needed to be a monument to peace. A site was chosen (later home to the B’nai B’rith Bridge) opposite…
1966 – The Story of Tel Aviv, Nahum Gutman
The charming works of Nahum Gutman (1898-1980) are best known from his book and newspaper illustrations. Gutman grew up in Little Old Tel Aviv, known as Ahuzat Bayit, which he also wrote about. The Shalom…
1967 – At the Gates of Jerusalem triptych of (from right) Rock, Ladders and Sign, Mordechai Ardon
The reunification of Jerusalem in 1967 reverberated across Israeli society. For Mordechai Ardon (1896-1992), the repercussions had a mystical quality expressed in the both the subjects and colors of this triptych painted in oil on…
1968 – Monument to the Negev Brigade, Dani Karavan
This concrete work in Be’er Sheva is probably Dani Karavan’s (1930-2021) first environmental sculpture, creating a space of memory that must be walked through to be appreciated. Elements of the work symbolize different stages of…
1969 – Untitled collage, Raffi Lavie
Raffi Lavie’s (1937-2007) works were influential on the Israeli art scene. A combination of collage, paint, scribbles and erasures on plywood, this work at the Israel Museum questions the role of art even as it…
1970 – From Holocaust to Revival, Naftali Bezem
Naftali Bezem’s (1924-2018) cast-aluminum wall sculpture at Yad Vashem is composed of four sections, moving sequentially from the crematoria of Auschwitz to the fallen ghetto fighters to the immigrants making their way to Israel and…
1971 – Ingathering of the Exiles, Abraham Ofek
Shimon Peres, then the minister of communication, commissioned Abraham Ofek (1935-1990) to decorate the inside of the Mandate-era Central Post Office in Jerusalem in the spirit of using art for public edification. The mural he…
1974 – Holocaust and Revival, Igael Tumarkin
Igael Tumarkin (1933-2021) made this monument in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv of corten steel. It consists of two pyramids: a large one inverted and intersecting a smaller one below. The upper pyramid is the…
1975 – Druksland, Michael Druks
Michael Druks (1940-2022), born in Jerusalem, spent most of his artistic career in London. This iconic image, created through offset lithography and housed at the Israel Museum, depicts the artist’s head as a topographical map,…
1983 – Holidays Set, Zelig Segal
Zelig Segal (1933-2015), born into an ultra-Orthodox family, became one of the first artists from that community accepted at Bezalel. A talented silversmith and producer of various kinds of metalwork, he is best known for…
1984 – Mita Meshuna (the Artist’s Monogram), Igael Tumarkin
Igael Tumarkin (1933-2021) undertook this difficult mixed-media work at the beginning of the First Lebanon War in 1982. Daily casualty announcements flooded the Israeli press; Tumarkin’s response was to fashion parts of an army stretcher…
1985 – The Sacrifice of Isaac, Menashe Kadishman
The theme of the near-sacrifice of Isaac runs through Jewish literature and art from earliest times until today. Menashe Kadishman (1932-2015) made several works on this subject, some connected with his own son’s entering the…
1988 – Cactus, Assem Abu Shakra
Assem Abu Shakra (1961-1990) came from a family of artists in Umm El Fahm, near Hadera. His potted cactus, an oil painting in the Israel Museum, alludes to the metaphor for Israeli identity of the…
