Yigal Tumarkin (né Peter Martin Gregor Heinrich Hellberg à Dresde en 1933) est un peintre et sculpteur israélien, lauréat du prix Israël en 2004. Sa mort a été annoncée ce soir en Israël.

Il émigre en Palestine mandataire à l’âge de deux ans. Après un service militaire dans la marine israélienne, il étudie la sculpture à Ein Hod, un village d’artistes au pied du Mont Carmel. Il est célèbre pour le monument en mémoire de la Shoah sur la place centrale de Tel Aviv (place Rabin), et pour des sculptures situées dans le Néguev.

Igael Tumarkin.

Igael Tumarkin was born in 1933 in Dresden, Germany. Immigrated to Israel in 1935. He studied art with the sculptor Rudi Lehman at Ein Hod, and in 1955 returned to Germany where he worked at the Berliner Ensemble with Bertolt Brecht. He worked in Europe until 1961 as a sculptor and set designer. His travels took him to Africa, the Near and Far East, and to the USA, where he lived for several years. Since the end of the Seventies he has been living and working in Tel Aviv.

Tumarkin has worked extensively in the medium of printmaking, producing over three hundred prints. He was encouraged by the print studios founded during those years in the USA, where prominent artists such as Jasper Jones and Robert Rauschenberg began to engage in printmaking.

Tumarkin prints of the sixties were at crossroads between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, and between Pop Art and abstract movements that followed. In addition, he was influenced by the Surrealism and Dada movements whose impact was expressed in the combination of free brushstrokes and drip paintings together with the use of such materials as newspaper cuttings, photographs and junk.

Tumarkin has participated in various international exhibitions, and won many awards. His works are displayed in private collections and in museums both in Israel and abroad.

JPost : « Tumarkin created some of his most famous monuments during the 1960s, such as Mo’av Lookout, comprised of cement, and his famous He was Walking through the Fields (1967) depicting an impaled soldier, which he made using bronze and parts of damaged weaponry he received from the IDF as a donation for his artwork.
The unique creator used many art forms and portrayed a wide range of influences, from pop to avant-garde and assemblage. During his lifetime, Tumarkin published a number of articles criticizing the Israeli artistic culture of the day, as well as statements against Jewish life in Israel ».
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