Miriam Hadgadya, Early Israeli Russian Artist Lithograph With Woman Bezalel, 1932

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All but forgotten today, Had Gadya was the first woman to study at the Bezalel Art School and an outstanding … Read more All but forgotten today, Had Gadya was the first woman to study at the Bezalel Art School and an outstanding painter in 1920s' Tel Aviv. In 1912, she was 17 years old, the only female student at Bezalel. She had just come from Russia, and had been given the curious nickname "Had Gadya." During her first year at Bezalel, the artist and teacher Shmuel Levy Ophel painted a wonderful portrait of Had Gadya, a girl-woman, in shades of dusky blue. Her expression was both innocent and arousing - her trademark. In the 1920s, Had Gadya was the face of Bezalel. A kind of muse, a boyish nymph. She appears in a number of photographs by Yaakov Ben Dov, who documented life at Bezalel in the early years. But Had Gadya was more than a pretty face. She was a talented painter, according to the chief curator of the Israel Museum, Yigal Zalmona. In contrast, art historian Gideon Ofrat believes that her "spirit hovers over the complex and legendary beginnings of Bezalel and Boris Schatz and that is all." Had Gadya's real name was Marousia (Miriam) Nissenholtz. She was born in Russia in 1895 in a small town called Kodama, near Odessa. Both her parents were pharmacists. The most significant event in her life was without a doubt the Bezalel exhibition in Odessa. On Passover in 1911, Boris Schatz came to display works created at Bezalel and to enlist new students and funding for the institution, which was then barely surviving. It was still very cold when the big white tent went up in Alexander Park in the center of the city, according to sources of the period. Roman columns and a symbol of the Ten Commandments were placed at the front of the tent, and above the entrance a sign bore the word "Bezalel" in gilded letters. A "tapestry of the holy places" was unfurled, and nine crates containing the works of art were unloaded. The excitement was great. Mendele Mocher Sforim was photographed with Schatz at the front of the tent. Later, inside, Schatz presented magic lantern pictures to an audience of hundreds. Marousia was also charmed. There are conflicting versions as to how the name Had Gadya was born. Had Gadya (literally "an only kid" - the name of a popular seder song) was a common symbol at Bezalel, and the subject of illustrations by Zeev Raban. Nachum Gutman and others described their classmate as mischievous, skipping around like a goat on the mountains. In her autobiographical manuscript, Had Gadya says she invented the name for herself, as she felt like a young goat among wolves because the boys harassed her. For some reason this venture did not last. Like other women painters - Ziona Tajar, and later Aviva Uri and Lea Nikel, who was a good friend of Had Gadya - Had Gadya decided to pursue her art abroad. In 1921 she decided to leave her daughter, then three, and travel to Europe. Not to the art capital of Paris, but to Vienna, where among other things she studied batik, which was to become a main source of her livelihood. Ofrat argues that Tajar, who went to Paris as soon as she completed her studies, brought back Modernism, and any one who did not do the same was doomed to oblivion at that time. Zalmona adds that Tajar struggled to get where she was professionally, but also had the right connections with gallery owners and art critics, while Had Gadya had no one to depend on. "Schatz could no longer help her because the art scene and the power centers had moved to Tel Aviv," he says. Carmela Rubin, director of the Reuven Rubin Museum in Tel Aviv, says that Had Gadya's story cannot be divorced from the issue of the status of women artists in those years. Rubin, the daughter-in-law of the famed painter, researched the history of other struggling women artists from that period, like Yonah Shechter Zaliuk and Mussia Bograshov. "In the 1920s, these painters, who were good painters, exhibited in major shows at Haohel Theater. But the moment they got married, they became invisible," Rubin says. "This was not only because family life and the life of a woman artist could not be combined, but because no one paid attention to them. All of them, including Tajar, Lea Nikel and Aviva Uri, paid a heavy price for their career at a time when women were not expected to stand out. They were expected to stay home. They left their children and devoted themselves to art, but a little later than Had Gadya did." In the 1950s, she got married for the third time, to a penniless illustrator of children's books. She left him a few years later and returned to Israel, first living in Ein Karem in Jerusalem, and then moving to the artists' quarter in Safed, where she became friends with artists Lea Nikel and Hava Levy. In her latter years, she lived with her elder daughter in Tel Aviv, Shulamit Abulafia Cifroni (who died this year). In the 1970s, in Safed, Had Gadya began painting large abstracts, full of color and squares. In one, beyond the geometric patterns, as if behind a transparent curtain, a woman can be seen holding a baby, reminiscent of the Madonna and child. "She felt she was being liberated and reaching her destination as an artist," Joelson says. See less