Elhanan Halpern was born in Gunionadz, Poland in 1914 and immigrated to Jerusalem with his family in 1921.  He studied independently and then moved to Paris to study.  He returned to newly-formed Israel where he was associated with artists from Streichman’s Studia Art group.

He was a founder of Israel’s Group of Ten whose focus was giving an international focus to Israeli art.  In 1960 he won the Dizengoff Prize, awarded annually by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality since 1937.  In 1963-67 he was elected to the UNESCO International Painters Organisation Steering Committee.

Elhanan Halpern died in Tel Aviv in 1995.