Israel Zohar was born in 1945 in Aktyubinsk (now Aktobe), USSR (now Kazakhstan). In 1949 the family immigrated to Israel, where Zohar studied art under various teachers and attended Bezalel Academy of Art. In 1987, following political disillusionment, he immigrated again, relocating to London, England, where his UK exhibition career began in 1989. His paintings are defined by a sustained commitment to European figurative painting, as a vehicle to consider and examine 21st century cultural, societal, and political positions.
Painter, Israel Zohar was born Israel Zigbaum in 1945 in Aktyubinsk (now Aktobe), in the former Soviet Union (now Kazakhstan). His father, Chayim, had escaped from Poland during the Holocaust, while his mother, Esther (née Kapuschvesky), was from Lithuania. Chayim's first wife and one of their sons were killed in the Holocaust. He managed to escape to the Soviet Union, but after Germany invaded Russia, many Jews were deported to Kazakhstan to save them from the Nazis. At the end of the war the family was relocated to a displaced persons camp in Germany, where they remained until moving to the newly-created State of Israel in 1949. Here Zohar changed his surname from Zigbaum. Zohar began drawing at an early age and studied with the painter Abraham Yaskil in 1959, for around three year, from the age of 14. He subsequently studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem in 1967. The following year he studied with the Viennese artist, Ernst Fuchs, and became his assistant, deepening his grounding in classical technique. In 1987 he relocated to London due to ideological reasons. Overall, Zohar has been married five times and has six children, all of whom are artists in their own individual way.
Zohar's work is executed primarily in oil on canvas and oil on board, and his practice is grounded in a close study of 17th century European painting. A study tour that included the Netherlands in 1969 left a lasting impression on his work, where the paintings of Vermeer and the other Dutch masters proved formative. In a formal and pictorial sense, his paintings mainly reference the Dutch school of painting, and yet, they gain contemporary currency through their function as a vehicle to consider and examine 21st century cultural, societal, and political positions. His Homage series, which includes reworkings of Girl with a Pearl Earring (1995), The Art of Painting (1994, 2008) and The Arnolfini Portrait (2008), demonstrates this sustained dialogue with canonical works. Alongside these meditations on the history of painting, Zohar has engaged directly with the political and humanitarian dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Belonging to and growing up in Israel afforded Zohar an informed position to witness the 1967 Six Day War and subsequent occupation of territories, and the ongoing and increasing displacement of Palestinian citizens. His Palestinian Paintings, begun in 2017, address this context through imagery of borders, domestic interiors, and civilian life in the West Bank and Gaza.
Zohar's exhibition career spans five decades. His earliest solo shows took place in Tel Aviv at the Ahuva Doron Gallery (1970) and the Sarah Kishon Gallery (1971 and 1977). He held his first retrospective in Jerusalem in 1982. In 1985, the Israel Museum acquired his self-portrait of 1980. His first London solo exhibition was held at the Roy Miles Gallery in 1989, following his relocation to England. He was subsequently commissioned to paint Henry Catto, the American Ambassador to the Court of St James, in 1990. In the same year, he received a commission from the Royal Hussars regiment to paint Diana, Princess of Wales, which now forms part of the Royal Collection. This was followed by solo exhibitions at the Catto Gallery, London (1999 and 2001); Spencer Coleman Gallery, Stamford (2003); Real World Gallery, London (2011); and Gallery Elena Shchukina, London, where he presented Interiors: Variations on a Theme By VermeerPast and Future (2014). In 1996, he held a solo exhibition at the Museum Panorama Mesdag in The Hague, titled Reflections: Homage to Vermeer, the venue of particular resonance, given its collection of 19th century Dutch panoramic painting. His most recent solo shows were held at The Edinburgh Gallery in Scotland in 2016, followed by The Palestinian Paintings presented by An Grianán Theatre, Donegal, Ireland (2022). In the same year, Zohar illustrated a children’s book titled, Teivat HaTzeva’im (The Colour Box), written in Hebrew by his daughter, Alma.
Among Zohar's institutional commissions is a group portrait for the High Court of Justice at the Middle Temple, London (2005), and a portrait of Wallace Browne, Lord Mayor of Belfast, now Lord Browne of Belmont, in 2006, which is held in the collection of City Hall, Belfast. In the UK public domain his portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales (1990) is held in the Royal Collection. The Israel Museum holds his self-portrait of 1980. Israel Zohar has been based in Highgate, north London, England since the late 1980s, where he continues to live and work.
Michal Mel
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Israel Zohar]
Publications related to [Israel Zohar] in the Ben Uri Library