Israeli sculptor and painter Menashe Kadishman died on Friday evening at the age of 82.

Kadishman, who reported feeling unwell, was rushed to the Tel Hashomer Hospital where he passed away shortly thereafter.

Born in 1932 in Tel Aviv, Kadishman studied with Israeli sculptor Moshe Sternschuss at the Avni Institute of Art and Design in Tel Aviv between1947 and 1950. In 1954 he studied with the Israeli sculptor Rudi Lehmann in Jerusalem.

In 1959, he moved to London, where he attended Saint Martin’s School of Art and the Slade School of Art. He remained in Britain until 1972.

Kadishman was perhaps most inspired by his work as a shepherd on Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch in his youth, between 1950 and 1953.

The experience with nature, sheep and shepherding had a significant impact on his later artistic work and career. Sheep first appeared in his work in the 1978 Venice Biennale, where Kadishman presented a flock of colored live sheep as living art. In 1995, he began painting portraits of sheep by the hundreds, and even thousands, which became his artistic “trademark”. That year he was awarded the Israel Prize for sculpture.

His sculptures can be found, among other places, at the entrance to the court compound in Tel Aviv, the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, in the Tefen Industrial Park and in the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.

Kadishman’s sculptures are also found in several countries around the world, including the United States, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom, among others.

Funeral details for Kadishman have yet to be made public.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)