Itzchak
Tarkay 1935 -
At the age of 9, Tarkay and his
family were sent to the Mathausen Concentration Camp, until Allied liberation freed them a year later. In 1949 his family
immigrated to Israel, living in a kibbutz for several years.
By 1951
he had received a scholarship to the Bezalel Art Academy where he studied under the artist Schwartzman. Until his graduation
from the Avni Institute of Art in 1956, Tarkay learned a great deal from many famous artists of the time, such as Mokady,
Janko, Schtreichman and Stematsky.
Tarkay
has achieved recognition as a leading representative of a new generation of figurative artists. The inspiration for his work
clearly lies with French Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism, particularly the color sophistication of Matisse and the drawing
style of Toulouse-Lautrec, while summing up the characteristics of his model subject without relying on the precise copying
of natural forms, or the patient assembling of exact detail.
As well
as being a painter and watercolorist, Tarkay is a master graphic artist and his rich tapestry of form and color is achieved
primarily through the use of the serigraph. In his serigraphs, many colors are laid over one another and used to create texture
and transparency.
After exhibiting
both in Israel and abroad, he received recognition at the International Art Expo in New York in 1986 and 1987 for works in
several forms of media, including oil, acrylic and watercolor. Today, Tarkay is considered one of the most influential artists
of the early 21st Century and has inspired dozens of artists throughout the world, with his contemplative depiction of the
female figure. Three hardcover books have been written on Tarkay and his art, the most recent, Tarkay, Profile of an Artist
was published in 1997.
