Zigi Ben-Haim

Who is Zigi Ben-Haim?

Zigi Ben-Haim is an American-Israeli sculptor and painter who lives and works in New York and Israel. He grew up in Israel and studied at The Avni Institute of Fine Arts in Tel-Aviv from 1966 to 1970. After he moved to the United States, he went to California College of Arts & Crafts in 1971 and received M.A at J.F.K. University in 1973 and M.F.A at the San Francisco State University in 1974. In 1975 he became a U.S. citizen, and has been living and working in lower Manhattan ever since. With his sculptural works made out of discarded newsprint and industrial paper, which he found on the streets of Soho, he gained fame in the 1970s in the US, Europe and Israel. Later on, aluminum became the industrial basic material of his work. He has received many awards and grants from institutions including Emily Harvey Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, The German Academic Exchange Service- DAAD, Muestra Int. do Obra Grafica, and the Ministry of Culture in Israel. His works are included and exhibited in numerous public and private collections around the world, including the Guggenheim, the Jewish Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Israel Museum, and the Tel-Aviv Museum.