Curators: Dr. Alek D. Epstein and Annie Orenstein
January 5 - February 4, 2026
Bella Levinson – Dream in Pink and Purple
Bat Zion Shegal – Music
Tal Didi – To Feel Like you Belong
Libi Weiss – Red Sea
Lera Barshtein – Evening in the Judean Desert
Maria Grossbaum – Eternal Light
Nurit Tzin – Walls of Jerusalem
Rina Markus – Spring in the Hula Valley
Reut Cohen – Between a Button and a Prayer
Vered Harush – Mother Earth
Reeva Brown – Floral Fantasy
Sara Sefton Shor – Garden Sanctuary
Voices of Their Own: Women Painters in Israeli Art
Dr. Alek D. Epstein,
Artistic Director and Curator of the Moshe Castel Museum – A Center of Jewish Israeli Art
When discussing the subject of women creators in art, we must begin at the beginning: It is important to acknowledge and emphasize the contributions of the female painters who had emerged back in the pre-state period to figurative art in Israel. Artists such as Ziona Tajer (1900–1988), Anna Ticho (1894–1980), Milia Laufer (1909–2008), Chaya Schwartz (1912–2001), Zippora Brenner (1917–2010), and others were able to make a name for themselves at a time when the number of women in this field was fairly limited, and the profession was largely considered the preserve of men. I would dispute the existence of a distinctly ‘female’ style of painting, seeing as the abovementioned women had nothing in common, artistically speaking. Thus, Ziona Tajer, who had traveled to Paris to hone her skills already in the mid-1920s, painted Tel Aviv (to which she returned in 1929) in a style rooted in the Expressionism of the artists of L'École de Paris – as did her male contemporaries Chaim Gliksberg (1904–1970), Mordechai Levanon (1901–1968), and others. The gentle landscape sketches of Anna Ticho do not diverge radically from those of Leopold Krakauer (1890–1954). The views of Safed painted by Chaya Schwartz are somewhat different from those produced by Isaac Frenel (1899–1981), Jakob Eisenscher (1896–1980), Mordechai Avniel (1900–1989), and Moshe Castel (1909–1991) – but those differences are no greater than the stylistic quirks that set each of these four men apart. Even Milia Laufer, who is known mostly for her paintings of flowers, cannot be said to have produced ‘purely female’ art: Yehuda Rodan (1916–1996), Adolf Adler (1917–1996), and Yosl Bergner (1920–2017) also gave pride of place to still lifes with flowers in their oeuvre; Milia Laufer’s paintings are certainly not identical to theirs – in the same way that the works of these three male artists are very different from each other.
Let me stress this point: Just as Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) did not come up with her own brand of Impressionism, but proved that a female Impressionist could be as good as a male one, so did the Jewish women painters of the pre-state and early state periods successfully challenge the male monopoly on painting as a profession – and therein lies their major contribution. That said, there is no specific style of painting in which female creators have been more active or prominent than their male counterparts, and all these women could certainly never be assigned to a single collective or artistic movement. Almost any list of the world's greatest women artists is bound to include the names of Berthe Morisot and Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), even though the art of these two women was radically different; the works of Morisot resemble those of Pierre Auguste-Renoir (1841–1919), while being as different as night and day from those of Kahlo. The same is true of Israeli art: The art produced by Ziona Tajer and Anna Ticho cannot be said to have anything in common.
The summer of 1948 saw the birth of the “New Horizons” collective, which pushed Israeli art away from the figurative mold and toward Abstractionism. All the key members of this collective, without exception, were men. In later years, however, there were several notable female abstract painters active in Israel, including Lea Nikel (1918–2005), Aviva Uri (1922–1989), Hagit Lalo (1931–1961), Etty Lev (1941–2020), and others. Lea Nikel, who won the Israel Prize for Painting in 1995, may have been the most important representative of Lyrical Abstractionism in Israeli art. Her career was rooted in a personal language of color and movement. Nikel was influenced by the avant-garde artists whom she met, and whose works she saw, during the many years she spent in Paris and New York. Her artworks are characterized by the free movement of colors and patches, yet they also reflect the artist's ceaseless pondering over the limits of painting and the nature of presence and absence. However, all this is equally true of the major male Israeli Lyrical Abstractionists and Abstract Expressionists, such as Joseph Zaritsky (1891–1985), Avigdor Stematsky (1908–1989), and Arie Aroch (1908–1974). We cannot claim that the abstract works of any of the aforementioned women are more poetic or lyrical (these are allegedly ‘female’ attributes) than those of Zaritsky or Stematsky. Undoubtedly, Lea Nikel, Aviva Uri, Hagit Lalo, Etty Lev, and several other female painters made an important contribution to the development of abstract art in Israel – yet, I would still claim that these individuals have no common denominator, and their art cannot be defined as a ‘female’ one.
Hagit Lalo’s suicide is sometimes taken as evidence of a particular ‘despair’ that afflicted female artists in that male-dominated world. However, we must not forget the tragic examples of the painter Yefim Ladyzhensky (1911–1982) and the sculptor Josef Tagger (1923–1992), who likewise took their own lives out of despair brought on by the indifference of society toward their art. The list of artistic suicides is a long one, and it includes such illustrious names as Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Jules Pascin (1885–1930), and Mark Rothko (1903–1970); the causes of these personal tragedies cannot be reduced to the artists' gender.
The examples of Amedeo Modigliani and Mark Rothko show that not every painter of Jewish origin must produce essentially ‘Jewish’ art; likewise, not every woman painter can be said to produce ‘female’ art. By way of generalization, we can say that, for the past several decades, the profession of the painter has been undergoing a steady ‘feminization.’ Even if we limit ourselves to the field of Israeli painting, we can see that numerous contemporary women excel in it – including Sigal Tsabari, Michal Neeman, Naomi Brikman, Dganit Berest, Roni Taharlev, Nurit David, Orit Akta, Zoe Sever, Dina Kopelman, Netally Schlosser – and the list could be extended almost indefinitely. These women have secured their status and won all the major awards, from the Shiff Prize for Figurative-Realist Art to the Rappaport Prize for Israeli Artists, from the Dizengoff Prize for the Plastic Arts to the Ish-Shalom Lifetime Achievement Award for Jerusalemite artists, etc.; Michal Neeman even won the Israel Prize for Painting in 2014. The present exhibition, too, features many high-quality works. If we broaden our scope to include the female artists who engage in installation art, contemporary sculpture, neo-conceptual art, photography, and video art, then the percentage of women among the key players in this field will become much higher still. Many of them choose to emphasize feminist themes in their work, since it is important for them to be not merely women artists, but also creators of a deliberately feminist art, which can be radical to varying degrees. Contemporary art is less beholden to beauty, being more concerned with cultural and social criticism and with the deconstruction of identity, while self-consciously engaging with language, boundaries, and questions of nationalism, community, religion, and gender.
Yet, needless to say, there are still talented and educated women who continue to develop various classical traditions of painting (and, from a present-day perspective, both Academic art and the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist school, which was exhibited at the Salon des refusés 150 years ago, are almost equally ‘classical’), and it seems that, in the contemporary environment, it is these women who show the greatest courage: At a time when most scholars, male and female alike, have "buried" the painting as an outdated, atavistic artifact, these traditionalists prove time and again the enduring relevance of a modern art that carries on the cultural legacy of the past, and does not try to renounce it. Again, this social category includes both women and men – yet, nowadays, no one would deny the right of female artists to convey their gender identity in their work. No field of art is off-limits to women, and they can express themselves, like their male counterparts, in whatever manner and style they see fit. This openness and pluralism, which are evident in the present exhibition, too, are extremely important values, and they need to be preserved.
“Voices of Their Own”: Women Artists at the Moshe Castel Museum of Art in Ma’ale Adumim
Many women artists have spoken about the internal struggle that preceded the start of their journey—and sometimes accompanied them for years: Do I have something to contribute? Do I have a voice of my own? The process of self-discovery takes time. It’s not just about saying “I’m good enough,” but truly believing: “I have the talent to create from within myself and enrich the world around me.”
In November 2025, an art exhibition featuring women artists who live and work in Ma’ale Adumim was held at the Pnei Shmuel Synagogue in Mitzpe Nevo, organized by Libi Weiss and Jamie Essaghian. I immediately felt that these creators deserved to be in a museum—to receive formal recognition, to grow professionally, and to bring the artist community together. With Joel Guberman’s help, I reached out to Deputy Mayor Rachel Har Zahav. She gave me Dr. Alek D. Epstein’s phone number directly: “Go for it!” We met right away, and that very evening, after speaking with Hagai Sasson, the museum’s director, Alec confirmed the exhibition was on. We drafted and distributed a call for submissions, published in Zman Ma’ale newspaper, on the museum’s website, and across social media. From over one hundred works submitted for consideration, we selected 65 pieces by 22 artists.
I lead “Spotlight on Women” (Bama La’Isha), an initiative that helps women discover, develop, and define who they are—on stage and off. Since 2006, and since the initiative was founded in 2010, I’ve had the privilege of giving a platform to over 500 women creators and producing more than 100 events in Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, and Ma’ale Adumim. For two years, I produced a radio program in Ma’ale Adumim called Spotlight on Women Radio, aimed at amplifying women’s voices in the media. This is my first time curating an exhibition—another dream come true, both for me and for the participating artists, some of whom are exhibiting in a museum for the very first time. I’m overjoyed to share in their joy.
Is a painting of the Judean Desert by a woman artist necessarily “feminine art”? Not at all. On the other hand, works like those by Tal Didi, Reut Cohen, and Vered Harush in this exhibition are distinctly feminine—no man would paint like this. Not every painting by a woman is feminine art, but every woman has the right to create art that is distinctly feminine.
This is the guiding principle we’ve remained faithful to in this exhibition: openness and pluralism. The exhibition includes highly accomplished works that are not distinctly feminine, such as those by Libi Weiss (“Joseph’s Dream,” “The Red Sea,” and “Tower of David”) and Lera Barshtein (“Evening in the Judean Desert,” “Night in Ma’ale Adumim,” and “Jaffa Port”), alongside works with a distinctly feminine perspective, such as those by Vered Harush (“Mother Earth”), Reut Cohen (“Between a Button and a Prayer”), and Tal Didi (“To Feel Like you Belong”). We stand by every artist’s right to express herself in her own way.
I would like to thank Rachel Har Zahav for her support from the very beginning; all the artists for rising to the challenge on a very tight timeline; Libi Weiss and Jamie Essaghian, who have been with me every step of the way and are themselves exhibiting in this show; and our wonderful municipal museum team, who opened their doors to us and showed unfailing commitment to making this exhibition a success—and a resounding one at that. Thank you to my husband, my family, and of course to G-d, who helps me discover, develop, and define my purpose in this world each and every day.
With love and appreciation,
Annie Orenstein
