Igaël Tumarkinartist • sculptorDresden (Duitsland) 1933

Israeli artist Igaël Tumarkin was born in Germany as Peter Hellberg. At the age of two he moved with his mother to Israel where he started training as a sculptor in 1954. In the following years he stayed in Berlin where he worked, among others, with Bertold Brecht's theater group 'Berliner Ensemble'. Tumarkin was regularly in Europe, Japan and the United States for extended periods of time. His work is highly committed, sometimes aggressive and appeals to the reality in which he lives as an Israeli. His sculptures and reliefs, often made of metal and complex in shape, can often be read as a statement of 'a kind of uncompromising guerilla fighter, eternally in opposition' (cit.). Many renowned museums have bought his work, including the Haifa Museum of Art, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2004 Tumarkin was awarded the Israel Prize.