Chana Orloff

Chana Orloff was born on July 12, 1888, in Tsaré-Constantinovska (now Ukraine), into a large Jewish family. After escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe, she immigrated with her family to Palestine in 1905, where she worked as a seamstress to support her parents.

In 1910, Orloff moved to Paris, becoming an apprentice at the Paquin haute couture house. A year after her arrival she earned second place at the École des arts décoratifs and simultaneously enrolled in informal classes at the Académie Russe in Montparnasse. In the French capital, she quickly became immersed in the vibrant avant-garde scene, befriending artists like Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera and Apollinaire. As early as 1916, she exhibited at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, alongside artists like Matisse, Van Dongen, and Rouault.

In 1916, Orloff married poet Ary Justman, and together they became part of Paris’s intellectual and artistic circles. After Justman’s death in 1918, Orloff became a renowned portraitist for the Parisian elite, creating over 300 works. In 1925, she was granted French nationality, awarded the Legion of Honor, and became a member of the Salon d’Automne.

During World War II, Orloff fled the Nazi occupation of Paris with the help of friends, her founder, the famous Rudier, who saved many of his works, and a senior police official who warned her of the imminent Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup. Escaping through Grenoble and Lyon, she and her son ultimately made it to Switzerland. After the war, she returned to Paris and resumed her sculptural work, creating poignant pieces that reflected the trauma of war.

In the post-war years, Orloff's reputation as an internationally acclaimed sculptor grew, with major retrospectives in Amsterdam, Oslo, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. She became known for her emotionally powerful works, which combined modernist abstraction with deep humanism. Starting in 1949, Orloff often visited Israel, where she created numerous monuments, including a famous portrait of David Ben-Gurion. In 1961, the museums in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and En-Harod presented a retrospective exhibition, celebrating 50 years of her work.

Orloff's legacy lives on through her remarkable sculptures, which captured the strength, tenderness, and resilience of her subjects. She passed away on December 18, 1968, in Tel Aviv.