Chana Orloff, a famous French-Israeli figurative sculptor, is a major figure in the Parisian artistic avant-garde.

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Initially a model maker, Orloff decided to devote herself to art in 1910, shortly after arriving in Paris, where she took sculpture courses and frequented numerous artists such as Tsuguharu Foujita, Marc Chagall, Jules Pascin and Ossip Zadkine. Chana Orloff aroused the enthusiasm of critics thanks to her remarkable sculptures and became the portraitist of the Parisian and international elite, as evidenced by her bust portraits ofHenri Matisse, by Amedeo Modigliani or even Pablo Picasso.

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In the 1920s, as his style became more concise and powerful, Orloff devoted himself to creating a bestiary. Each animal species represented prefigures a character, a role and a defined form, thus creating a perfectly successful formal representation. Orloff manages to avoid caricature by using the treatment of volumes and surfaces to create delicate symbols.

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In 1968, the Tel Aviv Museum organized a retrospective exhibition of the work of Chana Orloff. Les Chana Orloff Museum Workshops, labeled “Maisons des Illustres” house the largest collection of the artist, who lived and worked there from 1926 to 1968.