ועכשיו אל החומר: מבטים על סדנאות המלאכה ובית הספר לאמנות

And Now to the Material: Perspectives on the Craft Workshops and the School of Art

Ceramics, mosaic, stained glass, sculpture, printmaking, weaving, theater, drawing, and painting. From the very beginning of the artists' village in 1953, the founding core of Ein Hod initiated local economic branches: the craft workshops. The golden age of these workshops was during the 1960s and 1970s. Simultaneously, between 1971 and 1981, an art school operated in Ein Hod, offering a practical track for students who trained in these workshops. At its peak, the school collaborated with the Art Department at the University of Haifa, which was managed by A.B. Yehoshua, and a hostel was even established in the village for the students' benefit.

The craft workshops formed the ideological foundation for Marcel Janco and the core group of artists he rallied behind him: establishing a young Israeli art rooted in handcrafted traditions—based on the perception that art should be part of daily life, and also as a necessary path for the livelihood and development of the village. These workshops, which were later subsidized and supported by various bodies such as the Ministry of Labor and private donors, attracted those who would eventually become the founding fathers and mothers of crafts within Israeli art.

The exhibition "And Now to the Material" offers intersecting perspectives that move between different crafts, and between the traditional and the contemporary. In doing so, it demonstrates the processes of knowledge transfer, fertilization, and evolution during the golden age of the craft workshops and the art school in Ein Hod.