Focus Gallery: Oded Halahmy: Models in Wood

Intimate wood sculptures from the 1970s by Iraqi-born artist Oded Halahmy, exploring memory, displacement, and Mesopotamian heritage through carved forms suggesting ladders and windows.

Why go

Halahmy's hand-wrought wooden models—made before his monumental public works—reveal a singular artistic language rooted in his early displacement from Iraq to Israel and his father's goldsmith craft. The artist has said, "I found my way back to Iraq through making art."

What to expect

A focused installation on Floor 3 of wood sculptures primarily from the 1970s, with titles evoking family, ritual, and spatial orientation. Works are presented within the larger collection exhibition Identity, Culture, and Continuity.

Things to know

• Born in Baghdad in 1938 to an Orthodox Jewish family; airlifted to Israel in 1951 during mass migration.
• Learned to carve in his father's goldsmith shop before becoming a sculptor.
• Studied at Saint Martin's School of Art in London before moving to New York in the 1970s.
• Titles of works reference family, ritual, and spatial concepts; forms often suggest ladders and windows.
• Each sculpture is hand-wrought and intimate in scale, made in advance of his larger monumental works.
• Mesopotamian culture has continuously shaped the form and meaning of his artistic practice.

Plan your visit

The museum is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Open Sunday–Monday and Friday–Saturday 11am–6pm; Thursday 11am–8pm. Admission is free with general museum entry.