Ramat Gan Museum of Israeli Art

The museum stands at 146 Abba Hillel Silver Street in Ramat Gan.[1] Its building dates to the 1930s and formerly housed various factories and workshops.[1] The structure occupies a triangular plot formed by the convergence of two historic roads. It was described as Bauhaus in a 2015 profile and as International Style in a 2018 report.[6][2] The museum describes its modernist style as typical of residential and industrial architecture of the period.[1]

Ramat Gan Municipality acquired the building in 1983, and in 1984 the city council resolved to establish a museum of Israeli art there, creating an association headed by Deputy Mayor Hanan Rosen, for whom the museum campus is now named.[1] The museum is situated within the Hanan Rosen Museum Campus, which also contains the historic studios of artists Aharon Kahana, Nathan Rapoport, Kosso Eloul, and Joseph Constant—studios built in the 1950s on the outskirts of the Shikun Vatikim neighborhood.[1] This cluster of artists' studios reflects the vision of Ramat Gan's first mayor, Avraham Krinitzi, who sought to cultivate an art quarter in the area.[1]

The museum opened in 1987, with Meir Ahronson serving as its founder and first curator.[1] Its establishment was described at the time as adding "another exhibition space for emerging talent" in Israel.[7] In its inaugural year, the museum hosted "Dance Photographs: Mood and Movement," a photographic tribute to the late Alfonse Himmelreich, curated by Vivienne Silver.[7]

During the late 1980s and 1990s, the museum presented exhibitions by both established and emerging artists. It hosted a solo exhibition by prominent Israeli artist Moshe Gershuni in 1993.[8] In 1997, Natan Nuchi's "Digital Drawings"—computer-generated works deliberately produced at low resolution so that they appeared pixelated when enlarged—were shown at the museum, which is also listed among the institutions holding his work.[9] Its later program included Giorgio Linde's "How Do We Look from There?" in September 2012 and Jacques Janot's "The Place to Which He Is Connected" in February 2015, both curated by Meir Aharonson.[10][11]

By 2015, the museum was reported to be hosting five exhibitions simultaneously and adding approximately 40 works to its collection each year.[6]

A major renovation and expansion project initiated by Ramat Gan Municipality began in 2017 under the design of Efrat-Kowalsky Architects.[1] The 2018 planning documents described the structure as a 1930s industrial building in the International Style, designated for preservation. The plan retained its basic form while increasing its height and area, with a planned floor area of 3,061 square meters and a window pattern that gave the design a lighthouse-like appearance.[2] Later descriptions highlighted vertical precast concrete elements, structural glass, and a restored column rhythm repeated on the new floors.[12]

The finished project expanded the museum to approximately 3,000 square meters across three floors—roughly three times the original area in one account and nearly four times in another—and added a youth wing, an auditorium, a shop, and a café.[12][5] The renovation was funded in part by proceeds from the sale of Valentin Serov's 1910 "Portrait of Maria Zeitlin," a work from the collection of the Ramat Gan Museum of Russian Art. It sold in 2014 for more than £8 million, reported as NIS 33.3 million, with city officials citing the proceeds as necessary to finance the modern-art museum's renovation.[13] Former State Comptroller Yosef Shapira criticized the sale, arguing that it conflicted with the expressed wishes of the painting's donors.[13]

The project received the 2025 Ze'ev and Yaakov Rechter Prize for Architecture, announced in January 2026 and worth NIS 40,000. The award report highlighted the project's engagement with historic preservation and the tension between old and new, including the building's sharp-angled triangular form and the retention of original 1930s paving stones.[12]

The museum's permanent collection was established alongside the institution in 1987 and contains works in painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and sculpture.[14] The Hebrew-language collection page describes approximately 800 significant works of 20th- and 21st-century art, while the English About page states that the collection holds more than 2,500 works across diverse media and multiple generations.[1][14]

Artists represented in the collection include Rafi Lavi, Yair Garbuz, Lea Nikel, Yechiel Streichman, Dani Karavan, Pinchas Cohen Gan, Yaacov Dorchin, Shosh Kormosh, Asad Azi, Dganit Berest, and Anisa Ashkar.[14] The museum adds works continuously and reported adding about 40 pieces per year as of 2015.[6]

The museum also presents works from the Zetlin Collection, which Maria Zetlin donated to the city of Ramat Gan in 1959. The collection includes works by prominent painters active in Russia and France in the early 20th century, as well as costume-design sketches collected by Maria and Mikhail Zetlin.[15]

The museum's programming spans solo presentations, thematic group shows, and large-scale historical surveys. Among the most significant post-renovation exhibitions was "The Institution: The Museum and Israeliness," which opened on December 23, 2021, and was curated by chief curator Svetlana Reingold. It included works by about 50 Israeli and international artists in painting, photography, video, installation, sculpture, and performance, and used the museum's reopening to examine institutional power, the museum's role in Israeli society, and the possibility of socio-political change.[5][16]

For Israel's 75th anniversary in 2023, the museum presented "B'Eretz Ahavati" ("In the Land of My Love" / "In My Beloved Land"), curated by Roni Cohen-Binyamini. The exhibition displayed more than 200 works from the Phoenix Group's Israeli art collection. The collection, reported elsewhere as containing about 1,400 works, began taking shape in the 1980s at the initiative of collector Yosef Hachmi, with guidance from Yona Fisher and Prof. Mordechai Omer and long-term curation by Miri Ben Moshe.[17][18] Organized across the museum's three floors under the themes "Place," "Body of Work," and "What's New at Home," the collection had not been presented comprehensively since 2006.[17][18] Artists included Reuven Rubin, Nachum Gutman, Anna Ticho, Yosef Zaritsky, Arie Aroch, Raffi Lavie, Moshe Kupferman, Sigalit Landau, Yitzhak Danziger, and Avigdor Arikha, among many others.[17][18]

In 2026, the museum opened "The Movement: The Kibbutz in Israeli Art," curated by Yaniv Shapira, to visitors on April 30. Conceived in the months following October 7, 2023—when kibbutzim returned sharply to public attention—the exhibition considers artists who lived or worked on kibbutzim or were influenced by kibbutz life. The museum states that the exhibited works were not created in response to the October 7 events, although the exhibition's framing was shaped by that historical moment.[15]

The museum's December 2021 reopening was quickly overshadowed by a public dispute that led to its closure. David Reeb's painting "Jerusalem," displayed in a side area used as the collection storeroom, depicted an ultra-Orthodox man praying at the Western Wall alongside the Hebrew phrases "Jerusalem of Gold" and "Jerusalem of Shit."[4][19] Mayor Carmel Shama-Hacohen posted an image of the work on Facebook, publicly questioned whether it should remain on display, and requested its removal.[4] The museum removed the work.

Artists responded by covering works with black cloth in protest, and the mayor instructed museum staff to remove the coverings. Forty-three of the 50 exhibiting artists signed a letter demanding that their works be removed unless Reeb's painting was reinstated, citing political intervention in curatorial decisions and an unsafe working environment.[20] Chief curator Svetlana Reingold subsequently resigned after an earlier court decision had led her to believe that the artwork could be displayed, only for her to be told to remove it.[13]

Reeb and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel sought a court order to restore the painting. A Tel Aviv court rejected the request and found that the museum's managing committee—rather than the mayor—had made the final removal decision, meaning that the removal could not formally be regarded as censorship.[13][4] The judge urged the museum to consider a less drastic compromise, such as displaying the work in a secluded room with a warning about potentially offensive content.[4] Mayor Shama-Hacohen interpreted the ruling as upholding the removal and argued that protecting human dignity could take precedence over unlimited freedom of expression.[4]

Mediation between the city and the artists failed. The museum closed, canceled forthcoming events, and reimbursed ticket holders.[19] During negotiations, the mayor proposed storing the painting and making it accessible only to visitors who specifically requested to see it on Saturdays, while artists proposed displaying it behind a partition with a warning and explanatory material.[19]

The museum remained closed for about a year and reopened on January 26, 2023, following intensive negotiations among the Ramat Gan municipality, artists, and the Union of Art Curators.[13] Ran Guetta, formerly chief executive of the Cameri Theatre, had been appointed acting museum CEO.[21] The reopening featured three new exhibitions: "The Infinite Body," curated by Adiya Porat; "A-Ha!," curated by Revital Silverman Grün; and "The Language of the Liminal," jointly curated by Porat and Silverman Grün.[13] Agreements reached after the scandal were intended to strengthen curatorial independence and prevent similar disputes, including plans for an exhibitions committee and professional representation on the museum's board, though art writer Naama Riba noted that the mayor was not a party to those agreements.[13][21] Since 2024, Oren Aharoni has served as Acting CEO and Sari Golan as Chief Curator.[1]