Artist, sculptor and Israel Prize winner Igael Tumarkin died on Thursday afternoon, Israeli media reported.
Tumarkin’s artistic efforts included sculptures, paintings, drawings, and play sets, some of which he used to protest war and violence.
His monuments are stationed across Israel, including the MiShoa Letkuma (from Holocaust to Rebirth) monument at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.
Tumarkin was born Peter Martin Gregor Heinrich Hellberg in Germany in 1933 to a Jewish mother and Christian father, and came to Israel with his mother when he was two years old. In Israel, his mother married Herzl Tumarkin, who Igael always considered his father.
After his military service in the navy, Tumarkin studied sculpting in Ein Hod, an artists community near Haifa. Later he returned to Germany, where he began working as a set designer at the theater of Berthold Brecht, whom he later named as one of his greatest artistic influences.
Tumarkin returned to Israel in 1960 to present a gallery at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. He began sculpting using trash and scraps, for example, in his piece Pants Panic portraying a pair of stained work pants.
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.
He received the Israel Prize in 2004.
“The artist Igael Tumarkin, one of Israel’s leaders in sculpture and painting, passed away today and left us a legacy of artwork that will remain a testimony of his talent after decades of extensive effort,” Culture and Sport Minister Chili Tropper said on Thursday.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid also commented on the artist's passing, saying Tumarkin "was greater than life, a wonderfully ferocious person and a once-in-a-lifetime artist."
יגאל תומרקין היה איש גדול מהחיים, פרא אדם מופלא ואמן חד פעמי. מרכין ראש לזכרו.
— יאיר לפיד - Yair Lapid (@yairlapid) August 12, 2021
Tumarkin is survived by his second wife, Na’ama, a daughter, and two sons.