Collection: Esther Peretz-Arad   1921 - 2005 

Esther Peretz-Arad was born in Bulgaria and emigrated to Tel-Aviv when she was 3 years old. In 1937, at the age of 16, she began studying painting under Israeli artist Aaron Avni, whose studio she cleaned to finance her studentship, and took up sculpture under Yitzhak Danziger.

In 1943 she married fellow sculptor and violinist Grisha Arad. Together they had two sons, Ron Arad, the celebrated designer, and Atar Arad, a renowned violist and composer. In 1948 Peretz-Arad started to teach painting at the Tel-Baruch Elementary School while her husband convalesced in hospital after suffering an injury during the Israeli War of Independence. She journeyed to Europe in 1953 to explore its major centres of art. A member of the Israel Association of Painters and Sculptors, in 1956 she contributed for the first time to a group exhibition of Israeli artists at the Tel Aviv Museum. At 38, she was invited to hold a solo exhibition at the Helena Rubinstein Museum, the first of many in her career.