Art and designאהרן אבני

Aharon Avni

Aharon Avni was an Israeli painter born in Russia, a member of the Masad group and the founder of the art school later named the Avni Institute.

1906 to 1951Founding the Avni InstituteMembership in the Masad groupCofounding HaMidrasha art seminary

Born: 27 November 1906, Dnipro
Died: 23 March 1951, Tel Aviv
Occupation: sculptor, architect, painter, educator
Education: Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
Founded: Avni Institute of Art and Design (1936)

Aharon Avni was born in 1906 in Dnipro

Avni was born in 1906 in Yekaterinoslav, Russia. His father was an engineer and a Zionist, and his mother was a painter and poet. He studied at a cheder and a yeshiva, then at the Hebrew Gymnasium in his hometown.

In 1923 he began studying at the art academy in Moscow. He joined HeHalutz and immigrated to the Land of Israel in 1925. He studied at Bezalel in Jerusalem from 1925 until he was dismissed in 1928.

He moved to Tel Aviv in 1929 and exhibited with the Masad group of young artists. From 1930 to 1932 he studied at the Grande Chaumière academy in Paris. On his return he worked as an architect for the Jaffa municipality and taught.

In 1936 he founded a studio for painting and sculpture in Tel Aviv and ran it until his death. He held solo exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum and won the Dizengoff Prize in 1937 and 1948. In 1946 he cofounded a seminary for art teachers.

Avni died of cancer in 1951, and the studio was then renamed the Avni Institute. A retrospective of his work was shown at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in 2021.