Bluma Odes Ronkin, Israeli painter, born in the Russian Empire, 1912-2007

Bluma Odes was born in 1912 in Plungė, the Russian Empire (now Lithuania). The family was traditional and Odes was sent to be educated at the Tarbut high school.
In her youth she was active in the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement.
In 1935, after agricultural training, she immigrated to Eretz Israel and joined Kibbutz Kfar Masaryk, where she began to practice art as an activity in a drawing club.
She married Yitzhak Ronkin, who was the editor of the newspaper "Al Hamishmer" (daily newspaper published in Mandatory Palestine and Israel between 1943 and 1995. The paper was owned by and affiliated with Hashomer Hatzair) and they had a son (Emmanuel Ronkin) and a daughter (Anat Ronkin-Nashri). Her two children painted, and on several occasions they even exhibited together. In Israel, Odes-Ronkin was especially exposed to the rocky landscape of the Negev and also loved the landscape of the Galilee.

In the1940s and 1950s, she participated in seminars for the artists of the Kibbutz Artzi and studied for six months in the “New Bezalel” and for half a year in a drawing course led by Marcel Janco. In 1948 she was accepted as a member of the Painters and Sculptors Association. In 1955 she visited Paris, London and Italy.

In 1967, her son Emanuel, who was also an artist, was killed in the battle of Kela and Zeura in the Six Day War, after which the family moved to Tel Aviv.
In 1968, an exhibition was held in his memory at the Tel Aviv Museum (then the Dizengoff House). After his death she dedicated her entire life to his memory and commemoration, and even in the mourning notices published after her death it was stated under her name that she was "the mother of the painter Emmanuel Ronkin".

Art

As part of various seminars of the Association of Painters of the HaKibbutz HaArtzi, she studied painting with Mordechai Ardon, Marcel Janko, Zvi Mairovitch and Yohanan Simon. She also studied for a short time in Bezalel with Mordechai Erdon, then studied in France at the Académie de la Grand Chaumière, as well as in England and Italy. She also studied with Dr. Eugen Kolb in a course for painting teachers.
Starting in 1948, she was a member of the Association of Painters, and her first solo exhibition was held in 1959 at the Dugith Gallery in Tel Aviv.
However, she began to present the main exhibitions in the sixties, both in solo and group exhibitions in various galleries and museums in Israel and abroad.
She painted in oil, acrylics, panda crayons and watercolors. Odes Ronkin's early work, up until 1958, was characterized by a figurative approach and the use of varied painting techniques such as watercolors, drawing, etc. Beginning in 1956, she began to focus on oil painting. Her works were characterized by expressive abstraction and the use of stormy brush strokes.

Her works are in many collections of the major museums in Israel.

Education
1944 New Bezalel, Jerusalem with Mordechai Ardon, Marcel Janco, Meirowitz
1940s Drawing course by Marcel Janco and Eugene Kolb
1955 Advanced studies in France, England, and Italy

Teaching
1967- Painting, Kibbutz Kfar Masaryk.

Prize
1966 Hermann Struck Price, awarded by the Haifa Municipality to Israeli artists.

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

1959 Bluma Odes, Dugith Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
1963 Bluma Odes: Oil Paintings – Landscapes, Chemerinsky Art Gallery, Tel Aviv
1966 Bluma Odes – Oil Paintings, Rina Gallery, Jerusalem
1971 Haifa Museum of Modern Art
1975 Bluma Odess-Ronkin: Solo exhibition, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva.

Selected Group Exhibitions:

1951 / 1954 / 1960 / 1961 / 1963 / 1965 General Exhibition - Art in Israel, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1952 Painting and Sculpture in Israel, An Exhibition arranged to the Museum's 20th Anniversary, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1954 Young Israeli Painters, Tel Aviv Museum of Art

1957 Annual Exhibition, Art in Israel, Artist Pavillion, Tel-Aviv
1958 HaKibbutz HaArtzi Artists, Zaritsky Artists House, Tel Aviv
         Ten Years [of] Israeli Painting, Tel Aviv Museum of Art + Bezalel Museum, Jerusalem + Museum of Modern Art, Haifa
1959 "Man in Israeli Art" exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, Haifa. and the first abstract exhibition, Tel Aviv.
1963 The General Annual Exhibition, Chagall Artists' House, Haifa
1964 Autumn Exhibition, Rina Gallery, Jerusalem
         International Exhibition, Monacco
1966 Zaritsky Artists House, Tel Aviv
1967 Jerusalem Seen by Israeli Artists, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
         Artists in Israel for the Defense, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion
1968 Artists' Day: Exhibition of Paintings Jerusalem
1969 Art Festival, Painting & Sculpture in Israel, The Exhibition Grounds, Tel Aviv
1971 Israeli Art: Painting, Sculpture, Graphic Works, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
1976 Exhibition of the Museum’s Israeli Art Collection, Haifa City Museum
1977 One Hundred Years - One Hundred Plus Artists, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva
1978 Summer Exhibition, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva
2018 Painting Landscape, Zaritsky Artists House, Tel Aviv
2022 Bluma Odes Ronkin and Emmanuel Ronkin, Petach Tikvah Museum of Art.