Art and designמרדכי ארדון

Mordecai Ardon

Mordecai Ardon was an Israeli painter who directed the Bezalel school in Jerusalem and won the Israel Prize for painting in 1963.

1896 to 1992Directing the New Bezalel schoolThe Ardon Windows, National LibrarySymbolic paintings drawn from Kabbalah

Born: 13 July 1896, Tuchów
Died: 18 June 1992, Jerusalem
Occupation: painter, university teacher
Education: Bauhaus

Mordecai Ardon was born in 1896 in Tuchów

Mordecai Ardon was born Max Bronstein in Tuchów, Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary. His father was a watchmaker and goldsmith. He married Miriam Bennet in 1923, and their only son, Michael Ardon, became a chemistry professor at the Hebrew University.

From 1920 to 1925 he studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, with Itten, Klee, Kandinsky and Feininger. In 1926 he studied with Max Doerner in Munich. In 1929 he taught at the Itten art school in Berlin.

In 1933 he moved to Mandate Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. He began teaching at Bezalel in 1935 and was its director from 1940 to 1952, bringing modern art studies to the school. From 1952 to 1963 he was art adviser to the Ministry of Education and Culture.

From the 1950s his paintings used symbols drawn from Kabbalah, the Bible and the local landscape. His stained-glass windows on Isaiah's vision of peace, made from 1980 to 1984, are in the National Library of Israel. He died in Jerusalem in 1992.

Mordecai Ardon's life in 9 milestones

1920
Began studying at the Bauhaus in Weimar.
1933
Moved to Mandate Palestine and settled in Jerusalem.
1935
Began teaching at Bezalel in Jerusalem.
1940
Became director of Bezalel.
1954
Received the UNESCO Prize at the Venice Biennale.
1963
Received the Israel Prize for painting.
1974
Named Yakir Yerushalayim and received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University.
1988
Received the Boris Schatz Prize.
1992
Died in Jerusalem.