Malcah Zeldis was born Mildred Brightman on September 22, 1931, in the Bronx, New York. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to Detroit, where he father eked out a living as a window washer. As a child, Malcah spent endless hours with her brother, bedridden, listening to his hero, Hank Greenberg, play ball on the radio. .She graduated from high school with strong Zionist leanings and in 1948 went to live on a kibbutz in Israel. She met and married Hiram Zeldis, a writer who was also from Detroit. The couple were married in Detroit and returned to Israel. She was encouraged to paint by Aaron Giladi, an Israeli artist who saw her artwork during a visit to the kibbutz. Malcah Zeldis lives and paints in New York City In 1958, Zeldis relocated to New York with her family. For the next ten years, actively discouraged from painting by her husband and father and lacking the confidence to pursue it on her own, Zeldis abandoned painting to her role as mother and housewife. During the early 1970’s, once her children were older, Zeldis enrolled in Brooklyn College. In 1974, she graduated, obtained a divorce, and began to paint seriously. Zeldis’ work encompasses a wide rage of subjects including social themes, celebrations, everyday events, religious events and practices, fairy tales, and portraits of her heroes or heroines. She is most well known for her paintings of Jewish domestic life, urban life, and historical icons such as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Marilyn Monroe, and Anne Frank. Zeldis’ work illustrates the artist’s strong social commitment and her optimistic life view. She recently illustrated three children’s books – “Eve and Her Sisters – Women of the Old Testament,” “Honest Abe,” and “Peaceful Protest – The Life of Nelson Mandela.” Zeldis’ paintings use a flat style and bold colors. Completely self-taught, Zeldis does not concern herself with academic rules of painting and instead follow her own. Her work is widely collected and exhibited, with collections at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, the Jewish Museum, the Milwaukee Museum of Art, and the International Folk Art Museum. It was used for an invitation and poster for the traveling exhibit, American Art on the Move, which toured museums during 2001. Most notably, Zeldis was the first living artist to have a solo exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum in New York in 1988. Zeldis’ work has also been published in many books, including the “Moments of Jewish Life.”
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