Biographical Notes

Marek, Watercolor on paper, 56 * 76 cm

Marek Yanai (né Scharfherz) was born in 1946 in a Displaced Persons Camp near Mannheim, Germany. After moving with his family to Lodz, Poland, he eventually made aliyah in 1957.
In the late 1960s, while studying at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design with Josef Hirsch, the great master of drawing, Yanai illustrated books and magazines and was the founding manager of the Teddy Puppet Theater in Jerusalem.

In the 1970s, his interest in the techniques of the Old Masters led him to Madrid, where he studied at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando), and later to the Museum of Fine Arts (Kunsthistorisches Museum) in Vienna, Austria, with artist Prof. Ernest Fuchs.

Yanai's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Israel and abroad and he is the recipient of various prizes, such as the Ofer Feniger Prize for a Young Artist (Jerusalem, 1967), the Shoshana Ish Shalom Art Award (Jerusalem, 1997) and the Mordechai Ish Shalom Lifetime Achievement Award, (Jerusalem, 2003).

From 1987 to 1996, Yanai taught art at the Eretz Israel Museum, and since the 1990s, has been a senior lecturer at Bezalel, where he continues to influence generations of Israeli painters, designers, and animators. He also teaches at his studio.
Father to Noam and Michael, Marek Yanai lives and works in Jerusalem.

Selected solo exhibitions:
2022 On the Threshold – Jerusalem in Oil and Watercolor, Beit Avi Chai Gallery, Jerusalem
2020 Heads from the 5th Floor, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
2016 Present – Portraits of Trees and People, The Artists’ House, Jerusalem
2015 Marek Yanai – Solo Exhibition, Hacubia, Jerusalem
2014 Jerusalem Double Perspective, Matsart Gallery, Jerusalem
2014 Video Screenings of Watercolor Portraits Demos, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
2004 Portraits, The Artists’ House, Jerusalem
2004 Recent Works, Mayanot Gallery, Jerusalem
1997 Heads in Watercolor, The Artists’ House, Jerusalem
1994 Marek Yanai, Carol Schwartz Gallery, Philadelphia
1993 New Works, Mayanot Gallery, Jerusalem
1991 Aquarelle, The Artists’ House, Jerusalem
1990 Marek Yanai, S.D. Gallery, Lodz

1989 Aquarelle, Carol Schwartz Gallery, Philadelphia
1988 From Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, Mayanot Gallery, Jerusalem
1987 Marek Yanai, Shdema Gallery, Tel Aviv
1984 Lucy – Watercolor, Ella Gallery, Jerusalem
1983 Marek Yanai, Profile Gallery, New York
1982 Interiors, VII Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida
1981 Marek Yanai, Engel Gallery, New York
1979 Dreams, Hadassah K. Gallery, Tel Aviv
1979 Aquarelle, The Artists’ House, Jerusalem
1977 Marek Yanai – Solo Exhibition, Hadassah K. Gallery, Tel Aviv
1975 The Innocence of Ikaros, Hadassah K. Gallery, Tel Aviv
1974 Marek Yanai, Spectrum Gallery, Vienna