Anna Ticho

“…Unique among modern artists, Anna Ticho draws with a skill and insight usually associated with masters of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, though her work is in no way dated or academic. Indeed, it is a fitting expression of her country, where antiquity and the modern world are intimately interrelated.”
William C. Seiz

Born in Moravia, then part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Ticho first studied drawing at the age of 15 in Vienna. In 1912 she immigrated to Israel with her cousin, whom she later married.

For many years, Ticho assisted her husband, who was a famous surgeon. their beautiful old house in the center of Jerusalem (now known as the Ticho House) had become a meeting place for Jerusalemites who enjoyed the cosmopolitan atmosphere.

According to Ticho, she was so profoundly moved by Jerusalem and the magnitude of the landscape that for a long time she did not dare to record her feelings on paper.

Ticho saw the beauty of Jerusalem in the solitude of its hills, the untouched virginity and grandeur of its surroundings. her landscape drawings of the city surroundings represent a rare phenomenon- Superb draftsmanship and a deep understanding of nature.

In her late years, after her husband died, Ticho’s work took a new turn. after years of drawing from nature, living among the hills of Judea and observing the landscape from her small country house near Jerusalem, she ceased to look outside for her motifs. she started to create large scale drawings which removed from the reality of nature and coming from her memory and inner vision, her paintings seemed more like free drawing, almost abstract.

Shmuel Engel, the founder of the gallery was a close friend of Ticho, a collector of her works and even a secretary of hers for some years. Therefor, the gallery’s collection is one of the largest and most diverse Ticho collection in the world.