Bezalel School of Art

The Bezalel school was founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz, who shaped its character.
His approach stressed both the practical and the ideal.
His vision was to develop useful arts and crafts among Palestinian Jews, thereby decreasing the dependence on charity.
At the same time, he sought to inspire his students to create a Jewish national style of the arts, in order to promote the Zionist endeavor.

Boris Schatz

Boris Schatz (1866-1932)

Boris Schatz, born in the Kovno region of Lithuania, had an illustrious career as a painted and sculptor before he came to Eretz Israel and established the Bezalel Academy. In Paris he worked with the celebrated Russian Jewish sculptor Antokosky and at the Atelier Cormon, shortly after Van Gogh had studied there. He was later court sculptor to Prince Ferdinand and he was responsible for establishing the Royal Academy of Art in Sofia. It was his meeting with Herzl in 1903 that he was transformed by Zionist idealism and at the 1905 Zionist Congress he proposed the idea of the creation of a Jewish Academy of Art which would seek to create a distinctive form of "Jewish Art". He settled in Jerusalem and established the Bezalel school of Art in 1906.

Boris Schatz's Mark

Unique and Rare Bezalel items in our store