Portrait of Chana Orloff by Avraham Soskin

Chana Orloff ( he, חנה אורלוף; 12 July 1888 – 16 December 1968) was Ukrainian-born

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

and figurative art sculptor. Reuven Rubin sculpture by Chana Orloff 4 Signature

Biography

Chana Orloff was born in

Starokonstantinov Starokostiantyniv ( uk, Старокостянтинів; pl, Starokonstantynów, or ''Konstantynów''; yi, אלט-קאָנסטאַנטין ''Alt Konstantin'') is a city in Khmelnytskyi Raion, Khmelnytskyi Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

(now

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

). She

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

Ottoman Palestine Ottoman Syria ( ar, سوريا العثمانية) refers to divisions of the Ottoman Empire within the region of Syria, usually defined as being east of the Mediterranean Sea, west of the Euphrates River, north of the Arabian Desert and south ...

in 1905 and settled in Jaffa, where she found a job as a cutter and seamstress.

Zvi Nishri Zvi Nishri ( he, צבי נשרי; January 4, 1878 – July 22, 1973) was a pioneer in modern physical education in British Mandate for Palestine and later, Israel. Biography Zvi Orloff (later Nishri) was born to a Jewish family in Russia, where ...

(Orloff), the pioneer in physical education in Israel, was her brother. She joined

Hapoel Hatzair Hapoel Hatzair ( he, הפועל הצעיר, "The Young Worker") was a Zionist group active in Palestine from 1905 until 1930. It was founded by A.D. Gordon, Yosef Aharonovich, Yosef Sprinzak and followed a non-Marxist, Zionist, socialist agenda ...

workers movement. After five years in the country, she was offered a teaching position in cutting and dressmaking at Gymnasia Herzliya. She went to Paris to study fashion but chose art instead, enrolling in sculpture classes at the Académie Russe in

Montparnasse Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. Montparnasse has bee ...

. In 1916, she married Ary Justman, a Warsaw-born writer and poet. The couple had a son, but Ary died of influenza in the epidemic of 1919. When the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

invaded Paris, Orloff fled to Switzerland with her son and the Jewish painter

Georges Kars Georges Kars (Georges Karpeles or Georg Karpeles - Jiří Karpeles) (2 May 1880, other sources 1882 – 5 February 1945) was a Czech painter known for his landscapes and nude paintings. Life Georges Kars was born to a German Jewish family ...

. In February 1945, Kars committed suicide in Geneva, after which Orloff returned to Paris, to find that her house had been ransacked and the sculptures in her studio destroyed.Birnbaum, Paula J. (2015) 'Chana Orloff', in ''Journal of Modern Jewish Studies'', 1: 23, Routledge 2015/12/21.

Art career

In Paris, Orloff became friendly with other young Jewish artists, among them Marc Chagall,

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of ...

, Amedeo Modigliani,

Pascin Julius Mordecai Pincas (March 31, 1885 – June 5, 1930), known as Pascin (; erroneously or ), Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse", was a Bulgarian artist known for his paintings and drawings. He later became an American citizen ...

Chaïm Soutine Chaïm Soutine (13 January 1893 – 9 August 1943) was a Belarusian painter who made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living and working in Paris. Inspired by classic painting in the European tradition, exemplified by the ...

, and

Ossip Zadkine Ossip Zadkine (russian: Осип Цадкин; 28 January 1888 – 25 November 1967) was a Belarusian-born French artist. He is best known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs. Early years and education Zadkine was born on ...

. In 1913, she exhibited in the

Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The f ...

. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Orloff began spending an increasing amount of time there. The

Tel Aviv Museum of Art Tel Aviv Museum of Art ( he, מוזיאון תל אביב לאמנות ''Muzeon Tel Aviv Leomanut'') is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of modern and contemporary art from Israel and aroun ...

held an exhibition of 37 of her sculptures in 1949. She remained in Israel for about a year in order to complete a sculpture of

David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the nam ...

, ''The Hero Monument'' to the defenders of

Ein Gev Ein Gev ( he, עֵין גֵּב) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee near the ruins of the Greco-Roman settlement of Hippos, it falls under the jurisdiction of Emek HaYarden Regional Council. In ...

and ''The Motherhood Monument'' in memory of Chana Tuckman who died during the 1947–1949 Palestine war. After her return to Paris in 1950, Orloff received support and friendship from the Ukrainian-born artist Norman Carton to further grow her Parisian career using photography. She became a mentor to him. In addition to monuments, Orloff sculpted portraits of Israeli Prime Minister

and future Prime Minister

Levi Eshkol Levi Eshkol ( he, לֵוִי אֶשְׁכּוֹל ;‎ 25 October 1895 – 26 February 1969), born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik ( he, לוי יצחק שקולניק, links=no), was an Israeli statesman who served as the third Prime Minister of Israe ...

; the architects Pierre Chareau, and

Auguste Perret Auguste Perret (12 February 1874 – 25 February 1954) was a French architect and a pioneer of the architectural use of reinforced concrete. His major works include the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the first Art Deco building in Paris; the C ...

; painters

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

, Amedeo Modigliani,

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, and Per Krohg; and the poets

Hayyim Nahman Bialik Hayim Nahman Bialik ( he, חיים נחמן ביאַליק; January 9, 1873 – July 4, 1934), was a Jewish poet who wrote primarily in Hebrew but also in Yiddish. Bialik was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poetry. He was part of the vangu ...

, and

Pierre Mac Orlan Pierre Mac Orlan, sometimes written MacOrlan (born Pierre Dumarchey, February 26, 1882 – June 27, 1970), was a French novelist and songwriter. His novel '' Quai des Brumes'' was the source for Marcel Carné's 1938 film of the same name, starring ...

. . Orloff died in Israel on December 16, 1968.

References

External links

Biography
in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Women at the Jewish Women's Archive *
Official web site
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Orloff, Chana 1888 births 1968 deaths 20th-century sculptors 20th-century Israeli women artists Women sculptors Jewish sculptors Israeli sculptors Ukrainian sculptors Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the Ottoman Empire Israeli Jews Ukrainian Jews People from Kostiantynivka People from Yekaterinoslav Governorate Ukrainian women sculptors Israeli women sculptors Burials at Kiryat Shaul Cemetery

Biography

Art career

See also

References

Further reading

External links