Holzman was born in 1907 in Sambir, Galicia. He immigrated to Mandate Palestine from Vienna, Austria in 1922, settled in Tel Aviv, and began working as a house painter with his father.
In 1926, Holzman began private studies under Yitzhak Frenkel at the studio of painting arts of the Histadrut School where he also worked with Mordechai Levanon, Ziona Tajar, Avigdor Stematsky, Yehezkel Streichman, Moshe Castel, and Arie Aroch.
In 1929, he made his first of several influential visits to Paris, France. There, he studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and exhibited frequently. He was deeply influenced by Matisse, and his colour palette.
Holzman was a founding member of the Artists’ Quarter in Safed, represented Israel at the 1959 Venice Biennale, and participated in a group exhibition of Israeli artists at the opening of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1932.
Holzman is considered a modern master of the watercolour medium,
In 1937, he was the first recipient of the Dizengoff Prize, Israel’s highest honour for contributions to the Arts.
Holzman won the Haifa Municipality Prize in 1948 and was awarded the Dizengoff Prize a second time in 1959.
Holzman’s orientalist-inspired works depicting Israeli land and seascapes and Bedouin, Arab, and Jewish life are highlights of mid-twentieth century Israeli painting.
He died in Tel Aviv in 1986.
