| Anna Ticho | |
|---|---|
| Native name | אנה טיכו |
| Born | 1894 Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Czech Republic) |
| Died | 1980 |
| Citizenship | Israeli |
| Religion | Jewish |
| Spouse | Avraham Albert Ticho |
Anna Ticho (Hebrew: אנה טיכו) (born 1894, died 1980) was a Jewish artist who became famous for her drawings of the Jerusalem hills.
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Anna Ticho was born in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Czech Republic) in 1894. At the age of 15, she began to study drawing in Vienna.
In 1912 she immigrated to Palestine with her cousin, the respected ophthalmologist Avraham Albert Ticho (1883–1960), whom she later married. They settled in Jerusalem, where Dr. Ticho opened an eye clinic and Anna worked as his assistant. The clinic closed in 1960 after the death of Dr. Ticho.
In 1924, the couple purchased a large house surrounded by gardens, built in 1880 for the Nashashibis, a prominent local family, where they lived and worked.[1] The house had previously been lived in by antiquities dealer and forger Herman Shapira. Ticho hosted local and British government officials in her home, as well as many artists, writers, academics and intellectuals. Toward the end of her life, she willed the house, her art collection, including many of her own works, and her husband's extensive Judaica collection to the city of Jerusalem.
She died in 1980. Ticho House operates today as a branch of the Israel Museum, and houses a popular restaurant and cafe.
While the dramatically different light of the Middle East and the starkness of the landscape inhibited her artistic pursuits at first, in the 1930s Ticho went back to drawing and painting. It was then that she produced many of the distinctive drawings of the hills of Jerusalem and portraits of local people for which she became well known. Today, Ticho's drawings and watercolors can be found in major museums around the world.
In 2005, she was voted the 190th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.[4]