Yehezkel Streichman

Yehezkel Streichman was born in 1906 in Kaunas

Yehezkel Streichman was born in 1906 in Lithuania, then under Russian rule, the eldest son of a family of timber merchants. He went to the Hebrew gymnasium in Kovno and was a member of Hashomer Hatzair. He moved to the Land of Israel in 1924.

He studied art at Bezalel in Jerusalem, then spent a year in Paris. From 1928 to 1931 he studied at the Academy of Art in Florence, where Italian Renaissance art influenced him. He returned to Kovno and settled in Tel Aviv in 1936.

In Tel Aviv he married Tzila HaCohen-Walk in 1937 and worked odd jobs before teaching painting in schools. He taught at the Avni Institute and in 1945 opened a private painting school with Avigdor Stematsky. Among his students were Dani Karavan and Lea Nikel.

In 1948 he was among the founders of the New Horizons group, which painted in a lyrical abstract style. He showed work at the Venice Biennale and the São Paulo Biennial. He also served as president of the Israeli artists' union.

He received the Dizengoff Prize several times and the Israel Prize in 1990. He died in Tel Aviv on January 12, 1993, and a street in the city is named after him.