Drawing, sculpting and designing women

November 19, 2008 - 4:20 PM by Harry · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, History and Culture

Sitting Torso It’s well known that women played a key role in the forging of Israel’s military, intellectual and agricultural successes in the early generations of the nation. Just ask the leadership of the Union of Creative Women in Israel.

But many argue that women’s role in Israel’s formative visual arts scene has been given the short end of the stick. A group of women scholars has recently undertaken an extensive research project exploring the matter, yielding a formidable report entitled Creative Women in Israel, 1920-1970. The volume chronicles the lives and accomplishments of some 51 female photographers, 28 female architects and 86 female painters/sculptors, many of whom were celebrated in their time but are sadly overlooked or under-respected now – and that’s not counting 35 more figures not covered in depth in the book but currently being examined by the group.

Now that the book is set to be published imminently by Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of the Arts, the school has organized an entire day-long conference surrounding the occasion.

Entitled Creative Women of the Visual Arts in Israel and taking place this Sunday from 10:15 a.m. into the evening hours, the conference has been planned by an academic board headed by Dr. Ruth Marcus of the TAU Department of Art History. Many local and international presenters are involved as well, including Dr. Ines Sonder of Potsdam’s Moses Mendelssohn Center for European Jewish Studies, speaking about under-celebrated architect Lotte Cohn; Dr. Ruth E. Iskin, Ben-Gurion University professor of the Arts, author of Modern Women and Parisian Consumer Culture in Impressionist Painting; and Prof. Tamar Garb of London’s University College, speaking about Feminism, Art History and the Challenge of the Woman Artist.

Pictured is long-lost sculptress Sulamit Nem Salom’s bronze Sitting Torso, used by permission from Creative Women in Israel, 1920-1970.

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