Artist: Naftali Bezem (1924–2018)
Title: The Horseman (פרש)
Technique: Color lithograph, hand-signed and numbered
Edition: 66/200
Dimensions: 37x45 cm (Print size) 
About the Artwork:
This original color lithograph by prominent Israeli modernist Naftali Bezem depicts a symbolic pioneer horseman riding a white horse. The figure wears a wide-brimmed hat, carrying a rifle slung over his back, set against a classic early-Zionist rural landscape featuring a domed structure and a distant red-roofed house. A large, stylized tree in the background sways dramatically under soft blue and cream clouds. Rendered in Bezem's signature folk-allegorical style, this piece blends the visual language of Israeli pioneer heroism with a dreamlike, surreal atmosphere. The print is hand-signed in pencil along the bottom right and numbered 66/200 on the bottom left margin.
About the Artist:
Naftali Bezem (1924–2018): A towering German-born Israeli painter, sculptor, and muralist who immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1939.
Education: Studied under Mordecai Ardon at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, later returning as a senior instructor.
Artistic Vision: Rejects pure abstraction in favor of a unique national figurative iconography capturing the Holocaust, Jewish history, and immigration.
Major Murals: Acclaimed for high-profile public commissions, including the ceiling at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem and the entrance relief wall at Yad Vashem.
Honors: Awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Painting (1957) and represented Israel at the Venice Biennale.