Michal Chelbin

Chelbin was born and raised in Israel. She started photography at the age of 14. After high school, she served as a photographer in the Israel Defense Force spokesman unit for two years.[8]

Chelbin studied photography at WIZO academy of design and education in Haifa from 1997 to 2001.[1][9]

In 2005 she had a solo exhibition, The Chapels, at Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel.[10]

In 2007 Chelbin first exhibited her project Strangely Familiar at Blue Sky Gallery, Portland.[11] The project focused on performers from small towns in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, England, and Israel,[11] and in 2008 it received the Constantiner Award for Photography from Tel Aviv Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel-Aviv.[12] In the same year, Chelbin exhibited a solo exhibition under the same name at Tel Aviv Museum of Art.[12] This project was also published as the book Strangely Familiar.[13][12][14]

The Black Eye (2010) Chelbin continues Chelbin's interest in athletics as a photography subject.[15][14][16] In Sailboats and Swans (2012) she made portraits inside prison facilities in Russia and Ukraine.[17] With How to Dance The Waltz (2021) she focused on military boarding schools, matador training academies, and teenagers in Ukraine preparing for their proms.[18]

Chelbin has participated in group shows in The Getty Center, Los Angeles,[19] The Jewish Museum, New York,[7] and the National Portrait Gallery, London.[20]

She collaborated with fashion brand Dior Homme in 2016.[21][9] She is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine,[22] The New Yorker,[23] GQ,[24] and the Financial Times.[25]

Chelbin cites Vermeer, Caravaggio, Velázquez, Diane Arbus, and August Sander as some of her biggest influences.[1]

• Strangely Familiar: Acrobats, Athletes and other Traveling Troupes (Aperture, 2008)
• The Black Eye (Twin Palms, 2010)[15]
• Sailboats and Swans (Twin Palms, 2012)
• How to Dance the Waltz (Damiani, 2021)[26][27]

• 2005 The Chapels, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya[10]
• 2008 Strangely Familiar, Tel Aviv Museum of Art[12]
• 2013 Sailboats and Swans, Hellenic Center for Photography, Athens, Greece[2]
• 2021 How to Dance the Waltz, ClampArt, New York City[28]

Chelbin's work is held in the following permanent collections:

• Metropolitan Museum, New York[4]
• LACMA, LA[5]
• Portland Museum of Art[29]
• San Francisco Moma[30]
• The Kadist Art Foundation, Paris[31]
• Getty Center, LA[6]
• Jewish Museum, New York[7]
• Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel[3]

• 2002 America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship[30]
• 2003 Artist in Residence, Hammeau des Artistes, Paris[30]
• 2007: Constantiner Award for Photography –Tel Aviv[12]
• 2009: Shortlisted, Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, London[32][33]