Online auction no. 13 via bid spirit only Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at 17:00

Avraham Ofek was born in Burgas, Bulgaria, the third son of Dina and Yaakov Rubnov. Ofek's work portrayed social, national, and Jewish themes, as well as landscapes of Israel and especially of Jerusalem. For his work, Ofek won the Jerusalem Prize for painting in 1969.
Ofek arrived in Israel in 1949 and settled on Kibbutz Ein Hamifratz, where he studied painting under the tutelage of the painter Aryeh Rothman. His early work included images of animals, farm machinery, kibbutz scenes, scenes from the Wadi Ara region and from Jaffa, and images of laborers. In 1958 he went to Italy to continue his studies and to participate in the mural on a wall of the Accademia di Belle Arti ("Academy of Fine Arts") in Florence. Under the spell of the art of mural painting, which Ofek considered the primary medium of his work, he painted several of his best-known works, such as the mural on the wall of Beit Haam in Kfar Uria (1970), the mural in the Central Post Office in Jerusalem (1972) and the mural "Israel, a Shattered Dream", at Haifa University (1986-1987).
In 1962 Ofek and his wife Telma moved to Jerusalem. During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s he was an active member of the "Levitan group" with the artists Shmuel Ackerman and Mikhail Grobman. The group, which was founded in 1976, combined symbolism, metaphysics, Judaism and conceptual and environmental art. Within the framework of this group Ofek created performances and symbolic activities into which Jewish traditional symbolism was integrated. From the 1980s onward, Ofek returned to more traditional painting, which continued to feature Jewish themes, Israeli landscapes, and views of his city, Jerusalem.
Education
Painting under Arie Rothman
1958-1960 Academy of Fine Arts, Florence
1961 Study Tour to Seville and Madrid, Spain, and London
1969 Study Tour to Europe and U.S.A.
Teaching
1962-1975 Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem
1975 Head of the Art Department, Television, Jerusalem
1978-1981 Art Department, Haifa University
1984-1990 Professor, Art Department, Haifa University
Awards And Prizes
1959 - America-Israel Cultural Foundation
1969 - Jerusalem Prize for painting and Sculpture
1990 - Ish-Shalom Prize for Life's Work in Art
Environmental Sculptures
1970 Mural, Beit Haam, Kfar Uria