Michael Gross

Michael Gross was born in 1920 in Tiberias

Michael Gross was born in Tiberias in 1920 and grew up on a farm near the village of Migdal by the Sea of Galilee. His father served in the British Mandate police as head of investigations in Tiberias. In 1936 Arab rioters attacked the family farm and burned the house.

He studied at a teachers' seminary in Jerusalem until 1940. He later studied architecture at the Technion in Haifa and learned sculpture with Moshe Ziffer. From 1951 to 1954 he studied art at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

He worked as a teacher in Haifa and served as a guard in the Jewish settlement police. He took part in the War of Independence.

After returning in 1954 he settled in the artists' village of Ein Hod. He taught at Bezalel from 1957 to 1960 and at the Oranim art institute from 1960. His work reduced landscape to a few broad areas of color, and he made public sculptures in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

He was married to the artist Aviva Dalsky. He died in Even Yehuda on 4 November 2004.