History

Schmuel (Samuel) Kretschmer was born in 1891 in Poland. He moved to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem in 1912. He was accepted to Bezalel Academy where he studied painting. He also worked as an engraver at the school. In 1913, he opened a store in Jerusalem called The Stamp Workshop. After the First World War, he established an art workshop called Pituach on Yaffo Street in Jerusalem. However, the financial crisis in Palestine of the 1920s caused Kretschmer to move to Vienna, Austria. In Vienna he met Boris Schatz, a Lithuanian Jewish artist and sculptor. In 1933, he returned to Jerusalem with the help of Abraham Isaac Kook - the First Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. The same year he opened the Kretschmer & Sons workshop.