Igael Tumarkin

Igael Tumarkin

IGAEL TUMARKIN is born in 1933 in Dresden, Germany in the name of Peter Martin Gregor Heinrich Hellberg.
Immigrated to Israel in 1935, where he later served in the Israeli Sea Corps. After completing his military service, he studied sculpture art with the sculptor Rudi Lehman at Ein Hod, a village of artists near Mount Carmel in Haifa.
In 1955 he returned to Germany where he worked at the Berliner Ensemble with Bertolt Brecht. He kept working in Europe until 1961 as a sculptor and set designer. He then extensively travelled to Africa, Middle East, India, South America 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 is famous for the memorial sculpture of the Holocaust in the central Rabin's square of Tel-Aviv and for some sculptures situated in the Negev

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 and lithograph 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.

Prizes:

1963: First Prize for Memoria of 'Choulikat'
1966: “Peace Memorial”, Hebron Road, Jerusalem
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, Israel.
1971: “Homage to Jerusalem”, Givat Shapira, Israel.
1973: “Challenge to the Sun”, Ramot Alon, Jerusalem, Israel.
1985: Nikel was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Sculpture
1986: “Chichen Itzma”, Kiriat Menahem, Jerusalem, Israel.
1998: Awarded the Sussman Prize, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, but cancelled, subsequently the Sussman Foundation awarded the prize directly to Tumarkin.
2004: Israel Prize for Sculpture

Over 100 Outdoor Sculptures including:

1966: 'Peace Memorial', Hebron Road, Jerusalem, Israel.
1971: 'Homage to Jerusalem', Givat Shapira, Israel.
1973: 'Challenge to the Sun', Ramot Alon, Jerusalem, Israel.
1974: First Prize for Memorial for 'Holocaust and Resurrection', Tel Aviv, Israel.
1978 First Prize in the Biennale for Drawing, Reike
1984 Reward from the President of the Italian Republic
1986: 'Chichen Itzma', Kiriat Menahem, Jerusalem, Israel.
1986: Pisgat Zeev, Jerusalem, Israel.
1989: Homage to Robert Capa, Pozoblanco, Spain
1989: La Liberte, Bordeaux, France
1991: Bertolt Brecht, Berlin Museum Garden, Germany.
1992: 'Jerusalem - Three Faiths', Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel.
1992: August Rodin Prize, The International Sculpture Competition of the Open Museum, Hakone, Japan
1993: My Seven Pillars of Wisdom, The Hakone Open Air Museum, Japan
1993: Semaphore, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
1994-1996: The Sculpture Farden of Belvoir
1997: Reward of Excellence, the President of the Federal Republic of Germany
1998: Sussman Prize, Vienna
2000: sculptures - Abu Nabut Garden, Jaffa, Israel.