Abstract.

Bezalel (Lilik) Schatz was the son of Boris Schatz, founder of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem. Following his father’s death in 1932, Bezalel left Israel for a period of some two decades. He spent four years studying at the Grand Chaumiere Academy in Paris and then moved to the West Coast of the United States. He moved back to Israel in 1952, initially taking up residence in the Schatz family historic home in Jerusalem, before settling in the artists’ village of Ein Hod. Despite his long absence from Israel and his conceptual conflicts with its artists, Schatz represented his native country at Venice’s 1954 Biennale and overall contributed significantly to Israel’s aesthetic environment and the development of the fine arts.