Art and designמיכל נאמן

Michal Na'aman

Michal Na'aman is an Israeli painter whose conceptual work deals with language, sight and gender, and who received the Israel Prize in 2014.

born 1951Conceptual art in IsraelCollage combining text and imageA Kid in Its Mother's MilkThe 2014 Israel Prize

Born: 19 November 1951, Kvutzat Kinneret
Occupation: painter
Education: HaMidrasha – Faculty of the Arts, Tel Aviv University, School of Visual Arts

Michal Na'aman was born in 1951 in Kvutzat Kinneret

Michal Na'aman was born in 1951 at Kvutzat Kinneret, the youngest of four children of historian Shlomo Na'aman and Leah Kupernik. Both parents worked as teachers there. In 1964 the family moved to Lod.

During high school she studied art at the Margoshilsky school, and later took private lessons with George Shemesh. In 1969 she began studying at Hamidrasha, where her teachers included Raffi Lavie. In 1972 she completed studies in art history and literature at Tel Aviv University.

She took up Lavie's use of scribbling and collage but added text to her images. In 1974 she showed in the group exhibition Five Young Artists, where her work A Kid in Its Mother's Milk drew harsh criticism. In the mid 1970s photography and collage became central to her work.

Her first solo exhibition opened at the Yodfat Gallery in Tel Aviv in December 1975. From the 1990s she focused on painting, using adhesive tape to cover the surface. She received the Dizengoff Prize, the Sandberg Prize, the Pundik Prize and the Israel Prize.