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Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv


With the notion that one can't live on food and beach alone, we decided to visit the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.  My husband wanted to see it much sooner but I thought that it would be better to wait for a rainy day so as not to "waste" the beautiful weather.

The museum was envisioned and founded in 1932 by Meir Dizengoff, the first Mayor of Tel Aviv, and it was initially housed in his residence on Rothschild Boulevard.  Due to generous donations, the museum grew significantly and it was moved to the current location in 1971. 


 This is a really cool, modern building with sharp edges, raw concrete, metal and glass. 

 



There are a couple of different entrances.  This one will lead the visitor to the modern part of the museum.


 Sculpture Garden




Roy Lichtenstein, American Pop artist, created this mural in 1989 especially for the museum.  The Ben-Day (dots) mural depicts some of the works of art, which are part of the museum's collection.  There was a substantial outcry among the public right after the unveiling of the mural; many believed that the space should have been given to an Israeli artist.


The huge, 23X54 Ben-Day painting depicts some of the works of art which are part of the museum's collection. Marc Chagall's fiddler can be seen in the upper part, Picasso's images are in the middle, geometrical figures represent the works of Alexander Archipenko,  and the figures of women on the right are from Schlemmer's 1932 painting "Bauhaus Stairway" - which gives a nod to the Bauhaus architecture of Tel Aviv in 1930's.


While we visited, the museum had a wonderful exhibition titled "Buttons and Other Ornaments", with thousands of spectacular buttons from private collections.



Wounded Man, by Ruth Schloss


the Modern and Contemporary Art part of the museum features works from the mid-19th century to the present.  











The museum also houses one of the most comprehensive collections of Israeli art in the world,  Departments of Photography, Prints and Drawings, Architecture and Design as well as the The Old Masters Department featuring works from the 16th to the 19th century. 

The Old Masters section hold the collections of 150 paintings and sculptures by Van Gogh, Chagall, Klimt, Pollack, Picasso, Kandinsky, Rubens, Teniers, Van Goyen and many others.

 I fell in love with Claude Monet's "Apple Trees in Bloom".



During our visit we also had a chance to see a very interesting exhibit on fraud, in art and design.  It was fascinating to see the extraordinary ways people go through to copy, steal, and forge desired items.


The museum offers a variety of programs, concerts, classes, lectures, guided tours, workshops and other activities for adults and children.  It's a good idea to check their website for new exhibitions.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art
27 Shaul Hamelech Blvd.
Monday - Wednesday - Saturday -10am-6pm
Tuesday - Thursday - 10am-9pm
Friday - 10am-2pm
Sunday - closed

Joanna



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