Yigal Tumarkin

Biography

Peter Martin Gregor Heinrich Hellberg (later Igael Tumarkin) was born in Dresden, Germany. His father, Martin Hellberg, was a German theater actor and director. His mother, Berta Gurevitch and his stepfather, Herzl Tumarkin, immigrated to Mandate Palestine when he was two. Tumarkin served in the Israeli Navy. After completing his military service, he studied sculpture in Ein Hod, a village of artists near Mount Carmel. His youngest son is actor Yon Tumarkin.

Art career

Among Tumarkin's best known works are the Holocaust and Revival memorial in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv and his sculptures commemorating fallen soldiers in the Negev.

Tumarkin is also an art theoretician and stage designer. In the 1950s, Tumarkin worked 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. One of his controversial works is a pig wearing phylacteries (or tfilin, small boxes containing scriptures).

Education

Awards and recognition

Outdoor and public art

Tumarkin has created over 80 outdoor sculptures in Israel and around the world.