Yigal Tumarkin - Biography

Yigal Tumarkin (Hebrew: יגאל תומרקין) (born Peter Martin Gregor Heinrich Hellberg in Dresden, Germany in 1933) is an Israeli painter and sculptor. He is also known as Igael Tumarkin.

Biography

Tumarkin emigrated to Mandate Palestine from Germany at the age of two, where he later served in the Israeli Sea Corps. After completing his military service, he studied sculpture in Ein Hod, a village of artists near Mount Carmel. Tumarkin is famous for the memorial sculpture of the Holocaust in the central square of Tel Aviv (Rabin Square), and for some sculptures situated in the Negev.

Tumarkin is also a theoretician and stage designer. The 1950s found Tumarkin in East Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris. Upon his return to Israel in 1961, he became a driving force behind the break from the charismatic monopoly of lyric abstraction there. Tumarkin created assemblages of found objects, generally with violent Expressionist undertones and decidedly unlyrical color. His determination to "be different" influenced his younger Israeli colleagues. The furor generated around Tumarkin's works, such as the old pair of trousers stuck to one of his pictures, intensified the mystique surrounding him.

Education

• 1954 – Studied with Rudi Keheman, Ein-Hod
• 1955 Studied with ברטולט ברכט, ברלינר אנסמבל, Berlin
• 1955-57 Apprentice to קרל וון אפן

Awards and Prizes

• 1963 First Prize for Memorial of "Choulikat"
• 1968 The Sandberg Prize for Israel Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
• 1968 Sandberg Prize, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
• 1968 First Prize for Memorial to Sailors, Haifa
• 1971 First Prize for Memorial for "Holocaust and Resurrection", Tel Aviv
• 1978 First Prize in the Bianale for Drawing, Reike
• 1984 Award from the President of the Italian Republic
• 1985 Nikel was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Sculpture.
• 1992 August Rodin Prize, The International Sculpture Competition of the Open Museum, Hakone, Japan, for his sculpture Macht Arbeit Frei?
• 1997 Award of Excellence, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1998 Sussman Prize, Vienna
• 2004 Tumarkin was awarded the Israel Prize, for sculpture.
• 2005 he was voted the 161st-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

Outdoor and Public Art

Repertoire of over 80 outdoor sculptures around the world, including:

• 1966 "Peace Memorial", Hebron Road, Jerusalem.
• 1971 "Homage to Jerusalem", Givat Shapira.
• 1973 "Challenge to the Sun", Ramot Alon, Jerusalem.
• 1986 "Chichen Itzma", Kiriat Menahem, Jerusalem.
• 1986 Pisgat Zeev, Jerusalem.
• 1989 Homage to Robert Capa, Pozoblanco, Spain.
• 1989 La Liberte, Bordeaux, France.
• 1991 Bertolt Brecht, Berlin Museum Garden.
• 1992 "Jerusalem – Three Faiths", Mount Scopus, Jerusalem.
• 1993 Semaphore, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot.
• 1993 My Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The Hakone Open Air Museum, Japan.
• 1994–96 The Sculpture Garden of Belvoir.
• 1997 Memorial for Itzhak Rabin, Ramat Gan Museum.
• 2000 Abu Nabut Garden, Jaffa.

See also

• List of Israel Prize recipients

External links