Chana Orloff

Chana Orloff was born in 1888 in Zaporizhzhia

Chana Orloff was born in 1888 in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, the eighth of nine children. Her brother was Zvi Nishri, a pioneer of physical education in the Land of Israel. Her family moved to Ottoman Palestine and settled in Petah Tikva, where she worked as a seamstress.

In 1910 she went to Paris to study sewing and worked at the fashion house of Paquin. In 1911 she began studying at the national school of decorative arts in Paris. She learned sculpture on her own, outside the academy.

In Paris she was close to Jewish artists such as Amedeo Modigliani and Chaim Soutine. She married the poet Ary Justman, who died in 1919, a year after their son was born. During World War II she fled to Switzerland, and after returning to Paris she found her studio looted.

She sculpted mothers, animals and many portraits, including Hayyim Nahman Bialik, David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol. She made monuments in Israel, among them works at Ein Gev and Ramat Gan. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art showed her work in 1935, 1949, 1952 and 1961.

In 1968 she came to Israel for an exhibition of her work at the Tel Aviv Museum. She fell ill and died at Sheba hospital, and was buried in Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv. Streets in Paris and Tel Aviv bear her name.