Menashe Kadishman

Menashe Kadishman, born in Tel Aviv in 1932, was a world-renowned sculptor and painter. In 1959 he moved to London where he studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art and Slade School of Art, beginning his artistic career as a minimal sculptor. He was part of a celebrated group of artists in London that worked alongside British sculptor Anthony Caro. After an early figurative phase, he moved toward abstraction and conceptualism. Following his experience in Great Britain, Kadishman moved back to Israel where he lived and worked until his death in 2015.

His experience with nature, while working as a shepherd on a Kibbutz during his youth, had a significant impact on his artistic career. Toward the late seventies, portraits of sheep began to fill Kadishman’s canvases and eventually became his trademark, continually developing as his work evolved. Another recurrent theme, the horse, had the same source of influence, appearing prominently in sculptures and paintings. During the 80’s, imagery of sheep became a series of work based on the biblical story of the Sacrifice of Isaac, but with the peculiarity of centering the interest of the composition in the ram.