Gedalia

Gedalia Ben~Zvi was born in Czechoslovakia in 1925. He was imprisoned in a Polish concentration camp and escaped in 1945. He hid in the forests of northern Poland for weeks waiting to be liberated by the Russian army. He came to Israel in 1954 and began his work in Ein Hod, an artist village, that he helped establish in the foothills of the Carmel Mountains, south of Haifa. After the war, he also assisted in the prosecution of Otto Adolf Eichmann. His testimony is available to read online. He works in many media; sculpture, painting, tapestry and print. His style is constantly evolving. He is often asked about the meaning of the split heads in his sculptures. Ben~Zvi answers, “I am asked many times about the meaning of the split heads in my sculptures, and my explanation, based on creative thinking, is quite simple. The power to have an Open Head to new ideas and understandings is shown in a clear statement but also indicates the relation of each figure to the other by the direction of the head. It is known that the artist doesn’t just copy the reality of nature but ads his philosophical statement to his works.”

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