Torah Ark Curtain (Israel)

The Israeli painter, sculptor, ceramicist, and textile designer Siona Shimshi was born in Tel Aviv to a family that had migrated to Palestine from Lithuania. Shimshi studied at the Avni Institute from 1956 to 1959 and went on to study ceramics at Alfred University and, from 1959 to 1962, at Greenwich House Pottery in New York. While in Israel, in 1966 Shimshi helped found the art group Ten+. From 1979 to 1987, she chaired the Department of Ceramic Design at the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts. Her ceramic sculptures are often figurative busts in which she emphasizes or manipulates discrete facial features to express complex ideas and narrative themes.