The Art of a Woman—The Story of a Nation

Abstract:This article will explore the artwork of Bracha Avigad (1919–2016), an Israeli woman artist, in the context of her personal history intertwined with the history of Zionism and of Israel. Her artistic projects, dating from the 1940s through the 1980s, reflect significant elements of Zionist ideology and a feminist attitude embodied in both the content and the style of her works as well as in some of her career decisions. This is the first study to discuss and analyzing Avigad’s art work comprehensively. Significant ideological motifs in her work include the Holocaust and the vision of Israel, the Hebrew Bible as a cultural heritage, the land of Israel as a physical and spiritual entity, and the idea of sharing the land with the Palestinian Arabs. Her corpus of was divided into three main projects: The scroll of Esther, wildflower drawings, and biblical landscapes. Each project will be presented and examined chronologically, using a method based on iconography and iconology. From her first project to her last, Avigad’s ideas, perceptions and consciousness were expressed in a unique artistic voice.