Itzchak Tarkay ( he, יצחק טרקאי; 1935 – June 3, 2012) was an

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i painter and graphic artist. He is used

trade dress Trade dress is the characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers. Trade dress is an aspect of trademark law, which is a form of intelle ...

to protect his style from being emulated via ''Romm Art Creations Ltd. v. Simcha International, Inc.''. A case that Tarkay won.

Biography

Itzchak Tarkay was born in Subotica, on the Yugoslav-Hungarian border. At the age of 9, Tarkay and his family were sent to the

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen, Upper Austria, Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with List of subcamps of Mauthausen, nearly 100 further ...

by the Nazis until Allied liberation freed them a year later. In 1949, his family

immigrated Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

to Israel and was sent to the transit camp for new arrivals at

Be'er Ya'akov Be'er Ya'akov ( he, בְּאֵר יַעֲקֹב, ''lit.'' Jacob's Well) is a city in central Israel, near Ness Ziona and Rishon Lezion. The town has an area of 8,580 dunams (~8.6 km²), and had a population of 30,338 in 2022. History Be'e ...

. They lived in a kibbutz for several years. In 1951 Tarkay received a scholarship to the

Avni Institute of Art and Design Avni Institute of Art and Design is an Israeli art school located in Tel Aviv. History The Studia school (later Avni Institute) was established in 1936 by a group of Jewish artists. Among the founders was Aharon Avni, who became the school's fir ...

, where he studied under the artist Schwartzman and was mentored by important Israeli artists of the time including Moshe Mokady,

Marcel Janco Marcel Janco (, ; common rendition of the Romanian name Marcel Hermann Iancu ; 24 May 1895 – 21 April 1984) was a Romanian and Israeli visual artist, architect and art theorist. He was the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Const ...

Yehezkel Streichman Yehezkel Streichman ( he, יחזקאל שטרייכמן, 1906 – January 12, 1993) was an Israeli painter. He is considered a pioneer of Israeli modernist painting. Among the awards that he won were the Dizengoff Prize and the Israel Prize. Bi ...

and

Avigdor Stematsky Avigdor Stematsky (1908–1989) was a Russian Empire-born Israeli painter. He is considered one of the pioneers of Israeli abstract art. Biography Stematsky was born in 1908 in Odessa. He joined the Massad group in Tel Aviv. In 1929, he went to ...

. Tarkay died in 2012 at the age of 77 in Detroit, where he visited as a guest of

Park West Gallery Park West Gallery is a commercial art gallery based in Southfield, Michigan, United States. Park West Gallery claims to be the largest private art gallery in the world, but that is largely disputed, and that it has sold hundreds of works of art ...

Art career

His art is focused on almost dream images of elegant women, often in pairs. Tarkay's early works, some of which the Israeli art critic Joav BarEl classified as made in the De Staëlian style, were completed by him personally. His later works were drawn by him and then colored in by assisting artists on staff. He worked in acrylic and watercolor. He was also a graphic artist and his rich tapestry of form and color was 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. In his later years, Tarkay mentored younger Israeli artists including David Najar, Yuval Wolfson and Mark Kanovich who often visited his studio, worked alongside him and received his critiques. Tarkay was also the only artist to collaborate with

Yaacov Agam Yaacov Agam ( he, יעקב אגם) (born 11 May 1928) is an Israeli sculptor and experimental artist widely known for his contributions to optical and kinetic art. Biography Yaacov Gibstein (later Agam) was born in Israel, which, at that time ...

(1928). He and Agam created two paintings which incorporated both artists’ imagery in a single painting. His art is focused on almost dream images of elegant women, often in pairs. Tarkay's early works, some of which the Israeli art critic Joav BarEl classified as made in the De Staëlian style, were completed by him personally. His later works were drawn by him and then colored in by assisting artists on staff. Tarkay's art is influenced by French

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

, and

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

, particularly

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...

and

Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the l ...

Commemoration

In the year 2000, his work ''Reflection'' was minted by the Israel Coins and Medals Corp. In 2008, he became an honorary citizen of Holon.

References

Books

* ''Itzchak Tarkay: The Park West Paintings'' (1994) * ''Itzchak Tarkay: Profile of an Artist'' (1997), ISBN 9781883269197 * ''Itzchak Tarkay: Tel Aviv Retrospective'' (2012)

External links