John Byle was born in Detroit, Michigan in the United States. He studied art from 1946-51 at the Olivet Art Institute in Chicago and emigrated to Israel in 1951. Byle represented Israel at the 1963 Paris Biennale and won the Dizengof Prize for Painting from Tel Aviv Museum in 1965. After spending time in the US 1965-67 he became head of the Art Department at the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design, Jerusalem 1967-77. A prominent abstract artist and ‘colourist’, Byle has had, and continues to have, numerous solo shows in Israel. He is a member of the Tel Aviv Painters and Sculptors Society and his work is held in the Fischer Pharmaceuticals collection and the Jordan-Israeli Peace Treaty Art Collection amongst others. In 1990 he executed a prize-winning mural “Chaos and Insight” at Tel Aviv University.
