Painting, Sculpture and Other Visual Arts

Environmental artist Ran Morin (b.1958) employs the evocative symbolism of the tree in Jewish life to commemorate the seven students and staff members of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem killed in the terrorist bombing of…

The story of Samuel Bak (b.1933) encapsulates much of 20th century Jewish history: His first art exhibit was held under the shadow of deportations in the Vilna ghetto when he was 9, and his second…

Avner Bar Hama (b.1946) created this work in the shadow of the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. As a sculptor and conceptual artist, he makes use in this work of the iconic Jaffa orange, once…

This oil painting by Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov (b.1961) is based on the Jewish law that each home should leave a small square unfinished in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the size of this…

Designed by Safdie Architects, the Holocaust History Museum of Yad Vashem covers more than 4,200 square meters (45,000 square feet), mainly underground, on the Mount of Remembrance directly behind the Mount Herzl military cemetery. The…

Israel Hershberg (b.1948) was born in the Linz displaced-persons camp to Holocaust survivors and moved from the struggling Israel of the 1950s to the United States. Upon his return to Israel in 1984, he founded…

Elie Shamir (b.1953), son of Kfar Yehoshua, former fighter pilot and now artist, did a series of works about his moshav, which was founded in 1927. In the foreground of this oil painting we see…

This work of carpet on plywood by Gal Weinstein (b.1970) is inspired by the first moshav, Nahalal, which was designed by the German-born architect Richard Kaufman and built in 1921. The original design was a…

In this oil painting on canvas, Shai Azoulay (b.1971) explores the tradition of pilgrimage to the graves of Jewish saintly personae, in this case Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a second century tanna buried on Mount…

American-born multimedia artist Andi Arnovitz (b.1960) designed this installation to force the viewer to walk through more than 1,000 ceramic scrolls suspended in pairs from metal rods. One ceramic scroll in each pair is embossed…

Sigal Maor (b.1966), a textile artist active in developing the art scene in her hometown of Ashdod, embroidered this army uniform with the faces of the 67 soldiers who were killed fighting Hamas in Operation…

Our concern for our children serving in the army is the focus of this mixed-media work by Ken Goldman (b.1960). Goldman embossed into the soles of his son’s army boots two Hebrew words from the…

Artist Peter Jacob Maltz (b.1973) walked some 85 miles from his home in the center of Israel to Jerusalem, collecting objects on the way. Upon his arrival, he cast the objects in plaster to form…

Artist and graphic designer Dov Abramson (b.1975) created a conceptual map of Jerusalem named for an imaginary No. 70 bus line and based on 70 images from different parts of the city, in reference to…

Artist Zoya Cherkassky (b.1976), an immigrant from Ukraine, depicts in oil on linen the difficulties that the ex-Soviet olim (immigrants) faced during the massive wave of aliyah in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Here…

The award-winning National Memorial Hall building on Mount Herzl serves as a repository of the names of all the soldiers, Jewish and non-Jewish, who have died in Israel’s wars. Kimmel Eshkolot Architects, together with Liran…

Amira Ziyan (b.1977) is a Druze photographer who lives in Yarka in the north of Israel. Her photographs in this series relate to the role of women in Druze society. Are they simply those who…

Raida Adon (b.1972), the daughter of an Arab mother and a Jewish father, is an actress, performance artist and filmmaker. This video installation from the Israel Museum addresses the alienation many feel, whether as refugees,…

Jack Jano (b.1950), who was born in Morocco and immigrated with his family as a young child, studied at Bezalel and works in a variety of media. He deals with issues of rootedness, tradition and…

Tigist Yoseph Ron (b.1979), whose parents made aliyah from Ethiopia with their nine children, first settled in Atlit. The difficulty and displacement of those years are expressed in this powerful charcoal drawing in the collection…

Ruth Kestenbaum Ben-Dov (b.1961) made aliyah as a teenager with her family, graduated from Bezalel, and lives and works in the Galilee. She made these two oil paintings simultaneously. One is the view from her…

This striking installation, part of The Burning Sea exhibit at the Israel Museum until June 2023, comes from an ongoing project by Sigalit Landau (b.1969) in which she immerses a variety of objects in the…

Letters of Light by Micha Ullman (b.1939), a Bezalel-trained sculptor, is an environmental work based on the Hebrew alphabet and inspired by Sefer Yetzira (The Book of Creation), the oldest known Jewish mystical text. Set…

This carefully staged photograph by Adi Nes (b.1966) references Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic Last Supper. These soldiers, caught in the vortex of a conflict over which they have no control, put their lives on the…