Michael Gitlin

Michael Gitlin was born in 1943 in Cape Town

Michael Gitlin was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1943. His family moved to Israel in 1948.

He earned a BA in English literature and art history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1967. At the same time he studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, finishing in 1967. In 1970 he moved to New York and received an MFA from Pratt Institute in 1972.

His first museum show was at the Israel Museum in 1977, and that year he also showed at Documenta in Kassel. He belongs to a generation of Post-Minimalist artists active in Manhattan and Europe in the early 1970s. His abstract work began with paper and later wood, mostly as wall pieces, and he has split wooden boards with an axe and rearranged the parts.

He taught at Pratt Institute, the New School, Parsons School of Design, Bezalel and Columbia University. His works are held by museums including the Stedelijk Museum, the Guggenheim Museum and the Israel Museum. In recent years he has used steel wool, copper wire, foam and black spandex, and he lives in New York.