Shalom of Safed has lived for over 17 years in his native town of Safed in the hills of Galillee in Israel. There he has worked as a watchmaker, stonemason and silversmith, during the 1950's.
Since then this self- taught artist has achieved an international reputation.
Shalom is a naive painter but not a primitive: he expresses in his own way a very elaborate way of thinking.
Belonging to the orthodox Hassidim, religion governs his life and thought.
His deep faith and his great respect for religion may seem incompatible with painting. For Shalom this problem doesn't exist.
"I don't paint" he explains, "to tell the story of the bible in collar and lines. It isn't the plastic representation that is forbidden, but the pictures that turn men's thoughts of God by challenging His creation".
His work has been exhibited in prominent museums and galleries in Europe and the United Stated, and is included in the collections of the Museums of Modern Art in Paris and New York, the Israel museum in Jerusalem, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Jewish Museum in New York.