The group began its way in 1959 and operated in the country for nine years in which it presented ten exhibitions. The group attempted to place the local Israeli tone as a significant reference point against the abstract art which was dominated by the “New Horizons” Group.

The Ten Group – A Challenge on “Spreading” Israeli Art

An artist’s life are not easy, to say the least. Young artists go out to the world when they finish their studies, armed with creativity, imagination, vision, and intellectual contents. Most of them find it hard to make end meet financially, and struggle to make their way in the art scene in Israel.

One of the solutions for this situation came in the form of an association – founding of a group that employs its power to create joint exhibitions. “Together is Power”, one of them probably said in the past during the creation of the first few groups. The Ten Group grew on a fertile ground that lost its virginity in the associations field even before the country was founded.

A bit of history before counting to ten

Groups that create joint exhibitions were already active in the country since 1923 (the association of painters and sculptures of Israel). In this case, they displayed eclectic exhibitions in various artistic levels. Even though the agenda wasn’t explicit, the artists’ aspiration was to present modern art with European influence but original style that is connected to the Israeli reality. The results were mainly characterized in painting elements.

“New Horizons” group was founded in 1948 following a scandal that was based on the invitation and non-invitation of Israeli artists to present their work fruits in an exhibition in Venice. Yossef Zariski who was the chairman of the Painters and Sculptures Association at them time chose the guests list himself. This choice serves as a catalyst for New Horizons to group with him after he was removed from the chair due to that choice. The group included 15 artists and chose to prefer the universal art over the local one that was influence fron European abstract art.

Feel the pulse in the Ten Group

Under the pure and basic elements of abstract painting which are expressed through the composition, color, texture and lines, other voices began to whisper that eventually led to the founding of Ten Group which included Elhanan Halperin, Shoshana Levison, Zvi Eldobi, Efreim Lipshitz, Eliyahu Gat, Shimon Zabar, Shulamit Tal, Moshe Profs, Yaniv Klir, Zvi Tadmor and Dan Keidar.

The group began its way in 1959 and operated in the country for nine years in which it presented ten exhibitions. The group attempted to place the local Israeli tone as a significant reference point against the abstract art which was dominated by the “New Horizons” Group. From exhibition to exhibition the group composition was changed. Artists left, others joined and occasionally the name of the group changed accordingly (for instance, The Nine exhibition that was presented in 1953 and included nine artists). Some claim that the name “The Ten Group” was chosen intentionally in order to give a sense of non-ideological group.

The manifest of the group began to form merely on the 8th exhibition and claimed for a will to find artistic expressions that originate in the Israeli roots and are influence by its scenery and spirit. It’s important to note that despite the unified name, throughout the years some glimpses of modern trends that characterized New Horizons were visible probably due to the professional and personal connections among the groups’ members.

In the late 30’s the group members began to abandon the joint activity until eventually the exhibitions were stopped. The idea that followed the group during its period of work emerged to life after The Yom Kippur War in the form of Climate Group that included some of the artists from Ten Group.