Jerusalem Print Workshop
סדנת ההדפס ירושלים | |
 The Jerusalem Print Workshop | |
| Founded | 1974 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Arik Kilemnik |
| Type | Non-profit arts organisation |
| Location | |
| Fields | Printmaking, bookbinding, arts education |
Key people | Arik Kilemnik (founder and director) |
| Website | jerusalemprintworkshop |
The Jerusalem Print Workshop (Hebrew: סדנת ההדפס ירושלים; Sadnat HaHedpes Yerushalayim) is Israel's leading printmaking studio and a cultural centre dedicated to the advancement of fine-art printmaking. Located in the Musrara (Morasha) neighbourhood of Jerusalem, at the corner of Shivtei Israel Street and Ha-Nevi'im Street, the Workshop functions simultaneously as a professional studio, educational centre, archive, and gallery. It is registered as a public-benefit non-profit corporation and is widely regarded as the premier institution of its kind in the country.[1]
History
[edit]The Jerusalem Print Workshop was founded in 1974 by artist and printmaker Arik Kilemnik, who at the time served as head of the print department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design's Department of Fine Arts.[2] Kilemnik's intention was to create a dedicated home for artists working in traditional printmaking - etching, lithography, woodcutting, and screen-printing - at a time when such facilities were rare in Israel and virtually inaccessible to independent artists outside of university workshops.[3]
In 1975, the Workshop purchased the upper floor of an Ottoman-era building on Shivtei Israel Street, which had been standing derelict with no electricity, water, or sewage infrastructure. Restoration work was carried out with an emphasis on preserving the original architectural character of the structure.[4]
The Jerusalem Foundation, an organisation established by Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, has supported the Workshop since 1978, assisting with renovations, facility expansions, new immigrant artist programmes, and student courses.[2]
In 1981, the Workshop was dedicated as the Florence Miller Art Center - Jerusalem Print Workshop, and in 1996 it was rededicated as the Jerusalem Print Workshop - Bernard & Barbro Osher Art Center following further renovation supported by the Foundation.[2]
In 2010, the Jerusalem Foundation purchased the ground floor of the building to allow the Workshop to expand, enabling the addition of a new gallery, a dedicated print collection space, and a specialist printmaking library. The expansion was inaugurated with a retrospective exhibition of works by Igael Tumarkin.[4] A major accessibility project was completed in 2018, including the installation of an external elevator and the restoration of the building's original main eastern entrance. An upper gallery space was also renovated and named in memory of Nechama Rivlin, the late wife of President Reuven Rivlin.[4]
Today the Workshop also operates under the name the Ginugli Center for Print, reflecting a more recent phase of philanthropy and development.
Kilemnik directed the Workshop for over fifty years. In 2025 he was succeeded as director by Tamar Gispan-Greenberg.[5]
Building
[edit]The Workshop occupies a building at 38 Shivtei Israel Street (on the corner of Ha-Nevi'im Street), situated on the seam line between east and west Jerusalem, in the Musrara neighbourhood. The structure is classified by the Jerusalem Municipality as a "strict preservation-level" building.[1][4]
Ottoman origins
[edit]The building was constructed before 1876 by Ihsan Hasan al-Turjman, a wealthy Arab notable who owned numerous properties in the area, including the Turjman House (today the Museum on the Seam). Built in the Ottoman style using Ottoman construction techniques, the two-storey structure features characteristic groin vaults, a tiled roof, and was designed as a liwan house — a dwelling arranged around a large central hall — typical of prosperous Levantine architecture of the period. Turjman and his family occupied the upper floor, while the ground floor was used as a tile factory.[4][6]
In the late nineteenth century the building acquired a distinctive feature extremely rare in the region: a truncated tiled roof with a flat central terrace, known as a "widow's walk," designed to exploit a unique panoramic view toward the Old City and the Temple Mount. The only other comparable roof in the immediate area belongs to the adjacent Beit Mahanaim building, built by Swiss banker Johannes Frutiger.[4][6]
1930s–1970s
[edit]In 1931, Rabbi Chaim Pesachowitz (1879–1956), known as "the Red Rabbi" for his unusual inclusion of portraits of Marx and Lenin flanking his Torah ark, rented the upper floor and established a midrash (study house) called Torah Vadaat there, as well as a bank — Bank Hathya Limited, later renamed Hathya Loan Company Limited (1938). The building's ground floor housed a café run by Issachar Goldstein Talshir; on 11 October 1938, during the Arab revolt, Goldstein was injured in an attack inside the café, an incident that likely prompted Rabbi Pesachowitz to relocate.[4]
After World War II, the building was rented to the Evelina de Rothschild Girls' School as student dormitories, and in the 1950s a Holocaust survivor named Glaser purchased the entire building through a key money arrangement from Amidar. He operated a sewing workshop called "Veritas" on the upper floor and a rubber manufacturing factory on the ground floor.[4]
The Workshop era
[edit]The Jerusalem Print Workshop purchased the upper floor in 1975 and began restoration, taking care to preserve the original architectural style and elements even before the concept of formal historic preservation was recognised in Israeli law.[4] Intersection expansion works in the 1990s led to the demolition of a shop annex on the northern façade; new balcony support columns were designed by architect David Tolkovsky.[4]
Activities and programs
[edit]Professional studio for invited artists
[edit]The Workshop invites Israeli and international artists to create prints and artists' books in full cooperation with its team of master printers. Despite a limited budget, the Workshop finances the entire creative process, from the initial sketch stage through to the printing of a final edition, enabling artists to focus entirely on printmaking.[7] An artist-in-residence may spend several weeks to several months at the Workshop collaborating closely with master printers.
Open studio
[edit]Artists from Jerusalem and across Israel — including graduates of Workshop courses — are welcome to work independently during the Workshop's operating hours using its professional equipment and presses.[7]
Educational programmes
[edit]The Workshop runs courses in all major printmaking techniques and organises professional development activities, lectures, and seminars aimed at artists, students, curators, scholars, and the general public. Its educational mission is explicitly oriented towards preserving the art of printmaking and transmitting it to diverse audiences.[8]
Galleries
[edit]Two large galleries are maintained at the Workshop, presenting exhibitions of prints made both on site and at other local and international print workshops, with the aim of establishing printmaking as a recognised and significant field within Israeli and international art.[8]
Bookbinding
[edit]In addition to printmaking, the Workshop practises bookbinding, thus continuing the tradition of artistic Hebrew book production that began in the early twentieth century.[8]
Israeli Print Collection
[edit]The Workshop is home to the Israeli Print Collection, the largest and most comprehensive collection of its kind in Israel. The collection documents the history of printmaking in Israel and is accessible to the public and to art researchers through a dedicated computer database.[8] The collection also includes an extensive specialist library focused on printmaking.
Notable artists
[edit]Over the decades, the Jerusalem Print Workshop has collaborated with a broad cross-section of Israel's foremost artists. Notable Israeli figures who have created prints at the Workshop include:
- Igael Tumarkin - sculptor and printmaker, one of Israel's most prominent artists
- Menashe Kadishman - painter and sculptor
- Moshe Gershuni - leading figure of Israeli neo-expressionism
- Anna Ticho - celebrated draughtswoman and printmaker
- Lea Nikel - abstract painter
- Aviva Uri - pioneer of Israeli abstract art
- Micha Ullman - conceptual sculptor
- Larry Abramson - painter and curator
- Andi Arnovitz - Israeli-American artist and printmaker
- Sharon Poliakine – painter; also served as master printer at the Workshop for nearly twenty years[9]
International connections
[edit]The Workshop has attracted internationally acclaimed artists. According to the Jerusalem Foundation, among those who have worked with the Workshop are Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Alexander Calder.[2] An early report in the Detroit Jewish News (1982) confirmed that Calder and Lichtenstein had their works printed at the Workshop, describing it as "one of the best equipped artistic presses in the world" thanks in part to the patronage of American art philanthropist Martin Miller.[3]
The Workshop's dual role — as both a fine-art production facility and a cultural institution — has positioned it within an international network of artist-run and non-profit print workshops. It has participated in collaborative exhibitions with print workshops in other countries.
Awards and recognition
[edit]- 1984 – Eugen Kolb Prize for Israeli Graphic Art, awarded by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, in recognition of the Workshop's contribution to printmaking in Israel.[8]
- 2001 – Jerusalem Foundation Award (awarded to Arik Kilemnik).[10]
- 2016 – Lifetime Achievement Award in Visual Arts, Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport (awarded to founder Arik Kilemnik).[8]
Major exhibitions
[edit]- "War and Peace – 50 Years of the Jerusalem Print Workshop" (2024–2025): A landmark retrospective held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Charles and Evelyn Kramer Galleries, 29 June 2024 – 8 March 2025), curated by Emanuela Calò with Or Sand as assistant curator. The exhibition marked the Workshop's fiftieth anniversary and presented works by dozens of artists who had collaborated with the Workshop, exploring themes of war and peace across generations of Israeli art. All works in the exhibition were printed and published by the Jerusalem Print Workshop.[11]
Publications
[edit]- Ofrat, Gideon; Kilemnik, Arik; Gordon, Irena; Gispan-Greenberg, Tamar (2015). 100 Years of Printmaking in Israel (in Hebrew and English). Jerusalem: Jerusalem Print Workshop. p. 514.
Gallery
[edit]
Avraham Ofek / Light Signals
Larry Abrahamson / Rose of Jerico
Hila Ben Ari / Eight Breaths
Avital Cnaani / Deapths
Avner Katz in the Workshop / 2016
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- 1 2 "Jerusalem Print Workshop: One of the city's best-kept secrets". The Jerusalem Post. 2022-05-13. Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- 1 2 3 4 "Jerusalem Print Workshop". Jerusalem Foundation. Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- 1 2 Lewin, James (November 12, 1982). "Print Workshop Aids Artists". The Detroit Jewish News. World Zionist Press Service. p. 25. Archived from the original on 2026-01-20. Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "The Historic Building". Jerusalem Print Workshop. Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- ↑ "What's happening at the 9th Jerusalem Biennale of Drawing?" The Jerusalem Post, 16 November 2025. www
.jpost .com /must /article-873771 - 1 2 Bar-Am, Aviva; Bar-Am, Shmuel (2019-08-31). "Remnants of an empire: Visit Ottoman-era buildings revamped for modern Jerusalem". The Times of Israel. ISSN 0040-7909. Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- 1 2 "Jerusalem Print Workshop". All About Jerusalem. Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "About the Workshop – סדנת ההדפס ירושלים". Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- ↑ "The hands-on art of printmaking." The Jerusalem Post, 12 January 2012. https://www.jpost.com/In-Jerusalem/Features/The-hands-on-art-of-printmaking
- ↑ "Kilemnik, Arik". Jerusalem Print Workshop. Retrieved 2026-06-07.
- ↑ Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "War and Peace – 50 Years of the Jerusalem Print Workshop." Exhibition page. https://www.tamuseum.org.il/en/exhibition/war-and-peace-50-years-of-the-jerusalem-print-workshop/ (accessed June 2026).