[1][2] Melnikov participated in the Tower of David exhibitions, which took place annually in the 1920s and expressed the spirit of Hebrew art emerging in the Land of Israel.

[3] He created a unique style that combined a connection to the roots of the Jewish people with a primitive primordiality, distant from the European heritage, influenced by ancient Assyrian sculpture.

[5][6] Melnikov was elected to the first committee of the Association of Painters and Sculptors in the Land of Israel, alongside Joseph Zaritsky and Reuven Rubin.

When he saw the unmarked and exposed graves of the fallen from the 1920 Battle of Tel Hai, he proposed erecting a large-scale sculpture as a memorial.

He was buried alongside his wife, Charlotte Leib Neusenholz (who died in 1949), in Kfar Giladi, near the base of his famous creation, the Roaring Lion monument.