David Malkin was a versatile artist whose career evolved from classical sculpture to vibrant abstract painting. Born in Ackerman into a family of art supply merchants, he began sculpting at fourteen before studying in Prague. His early life was marked by Zionist activism and service in the Romanian army, eventually leading him to Mandatory Palestine in 1934. In Jerusalem and Haifa, he established himself as a portraitist of the Hebrew cultural elite, creating busts of figures like Uri Zvi Greenberg and Chana Rovina.
World War II served as a profound turning point for Malkin. After serving in the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, he settled in Florence, where he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 1945. Immersed in the post-war Italian avant-garde, he befriended masters like Giacomo Manzù and Carlo Carrà. His Florentine period was marked by significant recognition, including prizes from the Academy and high-profile exhibitions at the Palazzo Strozzi, as he pushed the boundaries of sculptural realism toward abstraction.
In 1955, Malkin moved to Paris, where he transitioned from sculpture to painting. Studying at the Académie Grande Chaumière, he began experimenting with atypical materials—Japanese paper, velvet, and corrugated cardboard—creating small-scale works of intense color and texture. During the 1960s and 70s, his art took a somber turn; he produced powerful cycles dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and pogroms, characterized by saturated compositions that resembled tragic, mysterious masks.
Malkin’s final decades were a celebration of light and form. His work moved from the subdued pastel tones of the 1980s to a final period of explosive, vibrant abstraction inspired by the landscapes of Corsica. By the time of his death in 2002, David Malkin had created a singular aesthetic language that transformed the Hebrew alphabet and Jewish historical memory into a universal vision of color and light. Today, his legacy is preserved in major Jewish cultural centers and private collections throughout Europe and Israel.
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