Biography

Chana Orloff was born in Ukraine. She immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1905 and settled in Jaffa

Jaffa

Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

, where she found a job as a cutter and seamstress. Zvi Nishri

Zvi Nishri

Zvi Nishri was a pioneer in modern physical education in Palestine, and subsequently in Israel.-Early life:...

 (Orloff), the pioneer in physical education in Israel, was her brother.

She joined Hapoel Hatzair

Hapoel Hatzair

Hapoel Hatzair is a Zionist group which was active in Palestine from 1905 until 1930. They were founded by A.D. Gordon, Yosef Ahronowitz, Yosef Sprinzak and followed a non-Marxist, Zionist, socialist agenda. In accordance with A.D...

 workers movement. After five years in the country, she was offered a teaching position in cutting and dressmaking at Gymnasia Herzliya. She went to Paris to study fashion but chose art instead, enrolled in sculpture classes at the Académie Russe

Marie Vassilieff

Mariya Ivanovna Vassiliéva , , better known as Marie Vassilieff, was a Russian painter....

 in Montparnasse

Montparnasse

Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail...

. In 1916, she married Ary Justman, a Warsaw-born writer and poet. The couple had a son, but Ary died of influenza

Influenza

Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...

 in the epidemic of 1919

Spanish flu

The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...

. When the Nazis

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 invaded Paris, Orloff fled to Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 with her son and the Jewish painter Georges Kars. In February 1945, Kars committed suicide in Geneva, after which Orloff returned to Paris with her son, to find that her house had been ransacked and the sculptures in her studio destroyed.

Orloff died in Israel on December 16, 1968.

Artistic career

In Paris, Orloff became friendly with other young Jewish artists, among them Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...

, Jacques Lipchitz

Jacques Lipchitz

Jacques Lipchitz was a Cubist sculptor.Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz, son of a building contractor in Druskininkai, Lithuania, then within the Russian Empire...

, Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...

, Pascin

Pascin

Julius Mordecai Pincas, known as Pascin, Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse", was born in Bulgaria to parents of four ethnicities. During World War I, he worked in the United States. He is best known as a painter in Paris, where he was strongly identified with the Modernist movement and...

, Chaim Soutine

Chaim Soutine

Chaïm Soutine was a Jewish painter from Belarus. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris....

, and Ossip Zadkine

Ossip Zadkine

Ossip Zadkine was a Belarusian-born artist who lived in France. He is primarily known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs.-Early years and career:...

. In 1913, she exhibited in the Salon d'Automne

Salon d'Automne

In 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...

. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Orloff began spending an increasing amount of time there. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Tel Aviv Museum of Art

The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. It was established in 1932 in a building that was the home of Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff. The Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art opened in 1959. The museum moved to its current location on King Saul Avenue in...

 held an exhibition of 37 of her sculptures in 1949. She remained in Israel for about a year in order to complete a sculpture of David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion

' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...

, The Hero Monument to the defenders of Ein Gev and The Motherhood Monument in memory of Chana Tuckman who died during the Israeli War of Independence. In addition to monuments, Orloff sculpted portraits of Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion

' was the first Prime Minister of Israel.Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946...

 and future Prime Minister Levi Eshkol

Levi Eshkol

' served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. He was the first Israeli Prime Minister to die in office.-Biography:...

; the architects Pierre Chareau

Pierre Chareau

Pierre Chareau was a French architect and designer.-Early life:Chareau was born in Le Havre, France. He went to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris by the time he was 17.-Work:...

, and Auguste Perret

Auguste Perret

Auguste Perret was a French architect and a world leader and specialist in reinforced concrete construction. In 2005 his post-WWII reconstruction of Le Havre was declared by UNESCO one of the World Heritage Sites....

; painters Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...

, Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Modigliani

Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...

, Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, and Per Krohg

Per Krohg

Per Lasson Krohg was a Norwegian artist. Per Krohg is most frequently associated with the mural he created for the United Nations Security Council Chamber, located in the United Nations building in New York City.-Biography:...

; and the poets Hayyim Nahman Bialik

Hayyim Nahman Bialik

Hayim Nahman Bialik , also Chaim or Haim, was a Jewish poet who wrote in Hebrew. Bialik was one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew poets and came to be recognized as Israel's national poet.-Biography:...

, and Pierre Mac Orlan

Pierre Mac Orlan

Pierre Mac Orlan, sometimes written MacOrlan, was a French novelist and songwriter.His novel Quai des Brumes was the source for Marcel Carné's 1938 film of the same name, starring Jean Gabin...

.

External links

• Biography in the Encyclopedia of Jewish Women at the Jewish Women's Archive