Aharon Giladi (Golodetz) 1907-1993
Family around the Table, circa 1950

Family around the Table, circa 1950

Aharon Golodetz (later Giladi) was born in Belarus to a wealthy family. In 1923-1926, he studied at the Leningrad Academy of Art. In 1926, he was exiled to Siberia for Zionist activity. In 1929, he immigrated to the Land of Israel and helped to found Kibbutz Afikim. In 1934, he married Dvora Sifelman and worked as a builder and plasterer. He began to draw sketches of kibbutz life and taught art locally. In 1942, he published a book of sketches with a foreword by the Hebrew author and poet Lea Goldberg. In 1948, Giladi left the kibbutz and moved to Kfar Saba. He won the Dizengoff Prize twice, in 1948 and 1954. In 1952, he published an album of drawings of the laying of the oil pipeline between Eilat and Beersheva with a foreword by David Ben-Gurion. In 1955, Giladi settled in Holon and maintained a studio in Safed.

Giladi's early work was influenced by the Paris school in his use of color and expressive brushwork. He gradually moved toward abstraction, painting figures without faces and employing a dark palette. In his later years, he used oil pastels.

Education

1923-1926 Leningrad Academy of Art

Awards And Prizes

1954 Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture

1958 Dizengoff Prize

1957 Prize, Sao Paolo Biennale, Brazil

1960 The Histadrut Prize