Lea Nikel (born Nikelsberg) was a Ukrainian-born artist who emigrated with her parents to Palestine in 1920, and grew up in Tel Aviv. Nikel began to study painting in her mid-teens with several influential avant-garde Israeli artists. She continued her education in Paris, where she lived and worked from 1950 to 1961. Nikel drew inspiration from the artistic atmosphere of Paris, consistently exploring a vibrant aesthetic. She also lived in New York and Rome. In 1977, she returned to Israel. Nikel’s lyrical abstract paintings were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1964 and at a career retrospective at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1995. That same year, Nikel received the Israel Prize for painting, and in 1997, she was named a Chevalier of Arts and Letters by the French minister of culture.
Tikkun Ha-Olam (Repair of the World) is from Benjamin’s Finding Home series, in which the Bombay-born Jewish artist raises questions about what and where “home” is, while addressing issues such as…
This poster was created for Komar and Melamid’s We Buy and Sell Souls, a conceptual art project the Soviet artists launched soon after their emigration to the United States. They formed a corporation…
The Book of Esther (also known as the Scroll [megillah] of Esther) is read out loud on the holiday of Purim. This example of an illustrated scroll from the Netherlands (shown here with a page of…