Igael Tumarkin (Hebrew: יגאל תומרקין; 23 October 1933 – 12 August 2021) was an Israeli painter and sculptor.

Biography

Peter Martin Gregor Heinrich Hellberg (later Igael Tumarkin) was born in 1933 in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. His father, Martin Hellberg, was a German theater actor and director, and a son of a pastor. His Jewish mother, Berta Gurevitch, and his stepfather, Herzl Tumarkin, immigrated to then British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel) 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, under Rudi Lehmann. His youngest son is the actor Yon Tumarkin. Tumarkin died at the age of 87 on 12 August 2021.

Art career

Among Tumarkin's best known works are the Holocaust and Revival memorial in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv and his sculptures commemorate fallen soldiers in the Negev. Tumarkin was 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 created over 80 outdoor sculptures in Israel and around the world.