Menashe Kadishman (August 21, 1932 – May 8, 2015) was an Israeli sculptor and painter.
Kadishman artworks are presented in central locations in Israel, such as Habima Square and his paintings can be found in many different galleries in Israel. He is most famous for his metallic sculptures and colorful sheep paintings.
In his youth, between 1950 and 1953, Kadishman worked as a shepherd on Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch. This experience with nature, sheep and shepherding had a significant impact on his later artistic work and career. The first major appearance of sheep in his work was in the 1978 Venice Biennale, where Kadishman presented a flock of colored live sheep as living art. In 1995, he began painting portraits of sheep by the hundreds, and even thousands, each one different from the next. These instantly-recognizable sheep portraits soon became his artistic “trademark”.
