Yigal Tumarkin (born Peter Martin Gregor Heinrich Hellberg in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Germany in 1933) is an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i 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

Israeli Sea Corps

The Israeli Navy is the naval arm of the Israel Defense Forces, operating primarily in the Mediterranean Sea theater as well as the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea theater. The current commander in chief of the Israeli Navy is Aluf Ram Rothberg.-History:...

. After completing his military service, he studied sculpture in Ein Hod

Ein Hod

Ein Hod is a communal settlement in northern Israel. Located south of Mount Carmel and southeast of Haifa in northern Israel, it falls under the jurisdiction of Hof HaCarmel Regional Council. In 2008 it had a population of 559....

, a village of artists near Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel

Mount Carmel ; , Kármēlos; , Kurmul or جبل مار إلياس Jabal Mar Elyas 'Mount Saint Elias') is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...

. Tumarkin is famous for the memorial sculpture of the Holocaust in the central square of Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

 (Rabin Square

Rabin Square

Rabin Square , formerly Kings of Israel Square , is the largest open public city square in central Tel Aviv, Israel. Over the years it has been the site of numerous political rallies, parades, and other public events...

), and for some sculptures situated in the Negev

Negev

The Negev is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The Arabs, including the native Bedouin population of the region, refer to the desert as al-Naqab. The origin of the word Neghebh is from the Hebrew root denoting 'dry'...

.

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
  Dizengoff Prize
  The Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture is awarded annually by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality since 1937.The following is a table of Dizengoff Prize laureates in their respective art form:...
  
   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
  Israel Prize
  The Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
  
  , for sculpture.
• 2005 he was voted the 161st-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
  Ynet
  Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...
  
  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.

External links