Aviva Blum is a Jerusalem artist belonging to the late abstract stream in twentieth-century Israeli art.

At the beginning of her artistic career in the 1970s Blum created prints inspired by the natural and urban landscape of Jerusalem. These works are more realistic in appearance than her later works, and contain surrealist elements.
Since then, for most of her life Aviva has painted abstract landscapes in watercolors and oils. Her style is reminiscent of the richly colorful European style, but also has connections with the starkness of early twentieth-century Israel. The landscapes she paints are inspired by the scenery of Jerusalem, where she moved in 1973 after having lived on a kibbutz, but are always derived from her childhood memories of Poland. She does not paint in nature, only in the studio. “I paint in order to forget” is what Blum says about herself.
The three formal elements of Blum’s oil and watercolor works are line, regions of color, and composition. Before beginning to paint, Blum draws in the slanting paths which act as the skeleton of the work. Afterwards hills begin to grow, and sometimes rural buildings. The colors, which Blum creates with masterful sensitivity and incredibly painstaking precision, are the work’s beating heart.

Studies:
Drawing with the painter Yosef Schwartzman in his personal studio in Tel Aviv (1957)
Painting at Avni Institute of Art and Design under the artist Yehezkel Streichman (1958–61)
Engraving with the artist Tuvia Beeri (1965–66)
Collagraphy course with the artist Dan Kriger (1968)
Engraving and silk-screen printing at Bezalel Academy of Art (1972)

Grants
Devorah Davidson Prize (1965)
Siva and Yitzchak ben Menachem Scholarship (1972)
Israel Print Competition, Honorable Mention (1980)
Haifa Graphics Triennale, Honorable Mention (1983)
Lighting a torch at Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, 2020

Solo exhibition
1963 Ramat Gan Cultural Center
1968 Beit Yad Labanim, Petah Tikva
1970 Kibbutz Gallery, Tel Aviv
1972 Beit Yad Labanim, Petah Tikva
1972 Artists’ House, Jerusalem
1973 Atran House, New York
1977–1990 Artists’ House, Jerusalem
1993 Conforti Gallery, Jaffa
1993 Nora Gallery, Jerusalem
1997 Efrat Gallery, Tel Aviv
1999 Artists’ House, Jerusalem
1999 Zapiecek Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
2000 Jewish Cultural Center, Kraków, Poland
2002 Arsenal Gallery, Poznań, Poland
2002 Efrat Gallery, Tel Aviv
2005 Wozownia Gallery, Toruń, Poland
2007 “Singer’s Warsaw” Festival, Fundacja Shalom
2008 Arsenal Gallery, Poznań, Poland
2009 Beit Gabriel, Tsemah
2016 The Museum Windows, Ramat Aviv
2022 Retrospective at the Jerusalem Biennale Gallery, Sha’arei Tsedek Building, Jerusalem
2023 Life, After All – First addition, A joint exhibition with the artist Wojciech Cieśniewski at the Jüdisches Museum Płock, Poland.
2024 Life, After All – Second addition, A joint exhibition with the artist Wojciech Cieśniewski at the Hotel president Gallery at Jerusalem.