Emergence of Fine Art Photography in Israel in the 1970s to the 1990s Through Pedagogical and Social Links with the United States

Introduction

In 1982, Howard Becker, the American sociologist, explained in his book titled Art World that “[t]he history of art deals with innovators and innovations who won organizational victories, succeeding in creating around themselves the apparatus of an art world, mobilizing enough people to cooperate in regular ways that sustained and furthered their idea” (Becker, 1982, p. 301). His assertion suggests that our knowledge of different art periods and movements is formed not from the totality of historical events, but rather from the establishment of a cohesive, decisive, and digestible narrative. Often in these narratives, the focus is placed on singular artists. Becker, however, views “Art” as a product of labor, and therefore it requires a network of individuals working together. Such social networks can include manufacturers of raw materials, artists, technical assistants, curators, dealers, gallery owners, collectors, academics, and so on. In the university or college setting, these codependent relationships involve the different sectors of the university, as in the various departments, faculties, and facilities. Within this intrinsic social network, art teachers interrelate with students and train them in a particular understanding and appreciation of an art medium and, working together, they inject support activities into the pedagogical environment through various academic connections. In such a setting, the growth of an art-related narrative occurs, strengthened by the acquired knowledge of the linguistic codes of the medium that results in a specialized way of speaking and writing about a distinctive form of art.

Art history as an academic discipline does not usually document such webbed and complex relationships; instead, “historians appear and begin to construct a more or less official version of the medium’s history, ignoring most of the work produced in the past and concentrating on a few workers and works which embody the aesthetic now regarded as appropriate for such a medium” (Becker, 1982, p. 346). Often, these histories are connected to the teaching of art forms such as painting, sculpture, and drawing, design, and photography. The acknowledgment of the people, places, and events told in these stories form traces that are subsequently studied and as such evolve into the historical discourse of that art form. Becker asserts that “[w]hat often remains of these stories is a linear art world … a history which shows how it has from its beginnings produced work of artistic merit and how a steady line of development has led inevitably from those beginnings to the present situation of undoubted achievement of high-art status” (Becker, 1982, p. 346).

This linear art world, however, does not accurately reflect the complexities of social networks that create the interconnected reactions and assist in developing and promoting a particular art form within the art world. With this in mind, this article will explore the emergence of transnational social networks relating to the art-making of photography, which came into being in the university settings of the USA and Israel. Its objective is to study their implications in terms of the account of fine art photography in Israel over the course of 20 years, from the 1970s to the 1990s. Utilizing Becker’s interpretative methodology on the importance of social networks for the formation of a new art medium, this article begins by addressing the state of the field in the USA during the 1970s. It then follows the trajectories of some of the graduates of these American photographic programs in how they had an impact on the development of Israeli academic programs and contributed to the importance of photography in Israel society. Within this context, the intention is to demonstrate the ways that these transnational networks lead to institutional support for fine art photography in Israel. ¹

It is important to understand that photography in the USA as elsewhere was first established as a commercial activity, rather than as a type of art. Thus, photography was rejected by the tradition of beaux-arts education, originally established in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the art academies of Europe and North America. Photography was largely taught as the acquisition of a set of skills, borrowing pedagogical models commonly used in apprentice training. The emphasis was on brief technical workshops, often held in the summer when the art schools were not in session (Stewart, 1980).

Despite this beginning, decidedly outside the realm of fine art instruction, by the mid-1960s in the USA a critical mass of photographers and art teachers acted together to introduce educational programs that recognized photography as an art medium. Of key importance in this regard was the foundation of the highly influential Society for Photographic Education in 1962 (Lyons, 2012). To develop programs for the study of photography in universities, educators actively participated in this organization and others. They did so because they recognized the need to agree upon and produce various types of materials to support their teaching, including curricular guides, historical texts, exhibition catalogs, journals, collections of slides, and prints of photographs. This was the mandatory corpus required to teach photography in the university.

Then, when students of these early educators graduated, some, in turn, became teachers disseminating the same principles of photography that were taught to them. Others chose to pursue careers as curators, writers, and professional photographers, in this way growing the field and providing further avenues for photography to be conceptualized and publicized as an art form. Most importantly, the graduating students formed an audience, who was willing to accept and support photography as an art practice. Consequently, in a short period of time, by the mid-1970s, photography departments were integrated into almost every academic fine arts program in the USA and a viable market for art photography was expanding. Many museums, in turn, collected and displayed photography as art. ²

In this process, which led to the American establishment of photography as an art form, individuals involved in the art photography field relied on one another for support (P. Higdon, interview in person with Ben-Choreen, 18 June 2018). This necessitated the building of strong supportive networks of photographers, who worked together to help establish the field regionally, nationally, and globally. To do so, it was imperative that they encourage and endorse each other’s endeavors, to evolve cohesively in association with one another. American curator and critic, Andy Grundberg, recalled this phenomenon that occurred “in the last quarter of the twentieth century” as “an international affair marked by interchange with and cross-fertilization from an increasingly cosmopolitan world of photography and art” (Grundberg, 2007, p. 8).

Photography in Israel

In Israel, fine art photography developed more slowly than in the USA. There were few opportunities to study photography in a university setting before the early 1970s. This meant that individuals interested in pursuing photography at the university level had to study abroad, with most going to the USA (Raz, 2010). Galia Bar-Or explains the significance of photographic education in Israeli institutions that began during this period:

‘Israeli Photography’ came about in the early seventies with the establishment of photography schools and the introduction of photographic studies in art schools. The importance of photographic studies is not only in that they produce generations of photographers, but because photographic education has implications in the creation of an audience influenced by photography, and thus, it has taken a role in shaping the awareness of the general public. (Bar-Or, 1986, p. 2)

As Bar-Or emphasizes, this teaching of photography should be seen as not only influencing the stylistic and conceptual understanding of photographic art, but also as crucial to its critical reception. An audience educated to recognize and appreciate photography as an art form meant that exhibitions of photography were now more readily accepted by museums and galleries. In addition, photographic books, catalogs, and journals allowed for further avenues of distribution of art photography.

The early manifestations of photography in Palestine and Israel and its subsequent development as a medium for artist-photographers was documented in 1995 in a thematic issue of the well-known academic journal, History of Photography. Titled “Photography in Israel,” the issue was edited by the photographer, historian, and educator, Yeshayahu Nir. The articles considered photography in Palestine and Israel from 1866, Zionist photographs from 1910 to 1941, early stereoscopic photography, and representations of Arabs and Jews on postcards from 1948 to 1991. These texts continued to build upon the history of photography in the geographic region, which typically described photographic practices in terms of different commercial forms or reportage.

Since photography’s invention in the mid-nineteenth century, photographers were sent to Palestine to satisfy the West’s craving for images of the Holy Land (Nir, 1985). As for photographic histories relating to the Jewish presence in the region, these writings typically identified the evolution of photographic styles with successive waves of immigration. Roth Oren, in her article “Zionist Photography, 1910–41: Constructing a Landscape” for this special issue, for example, maintained that photographers Alfred Bernheim, Tim Gidal, Helmar Lerski, Dr. Yacob Rosner, and others who numbered among the wave of German-Jewish immigrants, who came to Eretz-Israel in the 1920s and early 1930s, were affected by the dual impetus of Zionist inspiration and the rise to power of the Nazi regime in Germany. As photographers, they found limited opportunities to work in Palestine, still they greatly improved the quality of local photography and the level of local interest (Oren, 1995, p. 205).

Also included in the issue was a portfolio of the works of contemporary Israeli photographers selected by Nir to reflect the wide range of photographic practices, which featured recent artistic photography (Nir, 1995b). Nir explained that the process of selecting the photographers for the issue was difficult, as it excluded many young Israeli as well as “Palestinian photographers, who have only begun to exhibit their work in recent years” (Nir, 1995a, p. 184), at the time of the publication. Nevertheless, this portfolio presented key themes emerging in Israel since 1948, with a focus on the first generation of artistic photographers trained in America, as exemplified in the works of Simcha Shirman, Micha Kirshner, and Avi Ganor. For Nir, these photographers characterized the growing trend of art photography in Israel and revealed the strong impact of artistic photography from the USA.

In fact, Nir was not the only one to identify the American influence on Israeli photography. Photographer, researcher, and curator Raz (2003, 2010), and curators Perez (2000) and Vivienne Silver-Brody (2000) also connected the development of Israeli art photography, with graduates from American academic institutions. These were the Israelis who studied abroad and returned to Israel, as well as those who immigrated to Israel after completing their studies in the USA. They were the photographers who created much of the faculty in post-secondary photography schools like the Camera Obscura School for the Arts in Tel-Aviv and the photography departments in colleges and universities like the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. In their writings, American influence is frequently identified when photography is examined as a medium of creative expression.

This is not to say that examples of artistic photography did not exist in the country, prior to the 1970s; rather it was the institutional support in the form of higher education, the establishment of a museum system, and a viable market for photography as an art form that created the conditions for the emergence of artistic photography during the late 1970s and 1980s. Prior to this point, as in the early years of photographic education elsewhere, photography was largely taught as vocational training.

Photographer and historian, Eyal Onne, makes this point in 1983 in Personal Vision: Works by Contemporary Israeli Photographers:

[t]he concept of photography for photography’s sake should not be taken for granted when referring to its practice in Israel. The emergence of photography as an art form and as a creative medium in its own right, began in Israel only in the early 1970s. (Onne, 1983, p. 4)

In 1975, a short-lived magazine titled Musag, ³

Photography Education

In large measure, this was because of photographic education available in the Israeli academic institutions. In 1978, the Camera Obscura School of Art opened in Tel-Aviv as a private, independent school where students could study both film and photography. The school was founded by photographer Arie Hammer and artist Michal Rovner (Grundberg, 2007). In 1985, the school was awarded the Israel Museum prize for its contributions to art and photography in the country. The students of the school were so well regarded for their artistic outputs that they frequently received grants from the American-Israeli Cultural Foundation (Hammer, 1989). Ten years after its founding, the school boasted at having more than 50 teachers, who included prominent art teachers and professional photographers. ⁴

The facilities of Camera Obscura school included photography and film equipment, a library, and a gallery space. The founders of the school believed that the gallery would become an important venue for developing an audience for the photographic medium. It also provided a space to show international photographers, using the exhibitions as a teaching tool through students’ exposure to these established artists. Simultaneously, the gallery was also used to exhibit the works of the students and faculty of Camera Obscura, thereby providing them with an outlet to enrich their artistic careers through exhibition experiences.

Transnational links solidified in the school as Camera Obscura made available to its students the possibility to transfer credits to the Pratt Institute of Design or the School of Visual Arts (SVA), both degree-granting institutions in New York City (Hammer, 1989). The school’s relationship with the photography scene in the USA was also reflected in its ability to secure visiting artists. For example, Robert Frank, the photographer of Les Américains (1958), came in 1983 and 1988. Frank was most famous for this monograph containing provocative photographs from his journey across America, documenting daily life. These images were thought by many to have changed the course of twentieth-century photography. Frank taught his second workshop at Camera Obscura, with the poet, philosopher, and writer Allen Ginsberg, who was one of the major figures of the Beat Generation (Camera Obscura, 1989). At times, Arie Hammer invited multiple members of the same faculty to visit the school. For example, in 1994 10 photography faculty from the SVA visited to conduct workshops and give artist talks. Among them was Charles H. Traub, chairperson at SVA, dedicated to developing new curriculum in photographic education; Sarah Charlesworth, conceptual artist and photographer, known for her imagery of everyday life and interest in the effects of photography on American society; and Grahame Weinbren, pioneer of interactive cinema and new media (C. H. Traub, interview via skype with Ben-Choreen, 17 January 2019). Then a year later, in 1995, Lee Friedlander, a photographer well respected for his innovative social landscapes of city life, came to give a workshop at the school. These are but a few instances of the many rich international exchanges that occurred at the school (Camera Obscura, 1989). Such events and activities provided opportunities for Israelis to interact with key American photographers and conversely, for these visiting photographers to become acquainted with the workings of the school and the creative production of young Israeli photographers.

The faculty at Camera Obscura also reflected the typical influence of the pedagogy developed in the USA. Oded Yedaya, like many early photographers in Israel, chose to pursue his studies in the USA at SVA and in 1976, upon returning to Israel, helped Camera Obscura establish its photography program. Between 1983 and 1987, he served as the head of the photography department and in this capacity shaped the curriculum of the school based on his educational experiences in the USA. The school’s 10th anniversary course catalog, published in 1989, reproduced a portfolio of Yedaya’s innovative photographs, which combined text and image, a growing trend that could be seen emerging in conceptual photography in the USA. In this publication, Yedaya was described as one of the early American-educated photographers, who belonged to “the hard-core group who changed the face of photography in the country [Israel]” (Translated by author, Camera Obscura, 1989, p. 38).

American students during the 1970s and 1980s also chose to go to Israel as exchange students and some even taught in the schools there. MFA student, Ray Eduardo Robbennolt, as part of his Master’s program at the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) in Rochester, New York, for example, taught contemporary photography and critical and creative visual thinking at Camera Obscura in 1989 and 1990. He frequently wrote to his supervisors in Rochester to update them on the activities of the program. Recognizing the importance of Robbennolt’s work, the faculty at VSW granted him an extension of a semester to continue his teaching (Robbennolt, 1987–1992).

As for the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, its faculty began to offer classes in photography during the 1970s, gradually building a department of photography. In 1982, it started to offer a BFA accreditation for its program (Onne, 1983). Here too, the direct impact of American photographic pedagogical approaches was crucial. Yosaif Cohain, for instance, immigrated to Israel in 1971 after completing his MFA degree in photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York. In 1975, soon after his arrival, he became one of the first instructors hired by the photography department at Bezalel. In 1983, one year after the department was recognized as an official degree-granting program, he was promoted to the position of senior instructor (Onne, 1983). Cohain’s understanding of photography was profoundly influenced by Edward Weston, a leading proponent of Group f/64, whose landscapes of the American West were carefully focused on forms, objects, and spaces. Weston believed that photography was a mode of discovery, an ever-evolving process of training one’s eye to see as a camera would, “photographically.” This key principle, obtained during his education at RIT, motivated Cohain in much of his photographic approaches, which he, in turn, infused into the curriculum at Bezalel (Cohain & Cohain, 2015).

Other American educated faculty members at the school included Avi Ganor, and Simcha Shirman (Onne, 1983). Ganor utilized photographs of daily life to challenge our perception of the mundane, posing questions about memory and reality. Shirman, for his part, exploited a documentary photographic approach to question notions of place, identity, memory, and history. Reflecting upon the importance of the program to the development of artistic photography in Israel, Andy Grundberg emphasized that Bezalel “added to the visibility of photography practiced as an art, not as reportage” (Grundberg, 2007, p. 8).

The Influence of Pedagogy Outside of the Academy

The clearest impact of photographic education in Israel outside of the walls of the academy can be found in the exhibition catalogs published between the 1970s and 1980s. These texts shed light on the ways that photography was discussed and assessed in a mode of analysis and expression that reflected American influences. This is apparent in the documentation of the Israeli Photography Biennale 1986, held at Mishkan LeOmanut, at the Museum of Art in Ein Harod. According to Guy Raz, the exhibition marked one of the first attempts in Israel to showcase a collective style that reflected the photographic approaches emerging in the country. In the works on view, it was obvious that a focus was placed on personal or artistic photography, rather than a straight documentary or photojournalistic approach (2010). The biennial was organized by Galia Bar-Or, Abraham Eilat, Avi Ganor, Margalit Guttman, Yona Fisher, Micha Kirshner, and Simcha Shirman. Of these seven, only two had studied in Israel, while the others had pursued their studies abroad, mainly in the USA. ⁵

At the time, Koltz was a professor of photographic history and criticism at Pratt Institute in New York as well as the owner and director of Photocollect (now Alan Klotz Gallery), a commercial gallery specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century vintage photography, and the works of contemporary artist-photographers. His profile, as both teacher and art dealer, indicated his commitment to making links between the academic world and the art market (Mishkan Le-omanut En Harod & Ganor, 1986). For the exhibition, Klotz was asked to define what Israeli photography was and to speculate its possible future directions (Klotz, 1986). His essay can be understood in two related ways. First, it was a way to showcase the artists in the exhibition through international recognition, in particular, by connecting them with the photographic art scene in New York City. Second, Klotz’s text demonstrated the Israeli scene’s connectivity with American culture by discussing the exhibition through American terminology developed by and originating from American photographers, curators, and critics. Klotz did so by referring to the writings of recognized American experts in the field of photography. The Photographer’s Eye (1966) by John Szarkowski, Director of Photography, at the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, for example, is deployed by Klotz to introduce “the most intelligent and readable discussion of the implications of the pure photographic image” (Koltz, 1986, p. 9). Szarkowski’s exhibition catalogs and writings were well regarded and frequently used as introductory texts by photography educators and purchasing guides by collectors. Koltz then refers to the New York-based critic A. D. Coleman’s understanding of the photographer’s intentional compositional arrangement or what he coined as “directorial mode” in his influential 1976 essay (Coleman, 1976) to describe developing trends in Israeli fine art photography.

Notably, neither Bar-Or, author of the exhibition catalog’s first essay, nor Koltz, makes references to the works on display in the exhibition or even to the photographers selected for the biennale. Their texts instead can be read as a set of goals or ambitions motivated by such an exhibition, including the creation of an audience, documentation of local photographic production, establishment of a vocabulary with which to discuss photography, and the development of photography pedagogies inspired by and, at times, mirroring American teaching institutions.

In this regard, the contributions to photographic education of Nathan Lyons must be emphasized as a major influence. It was Lyons who had started the Society for Photographic Education in 1962 and served as its first chairman. At the same time, Lyons was known as a prominent American photographer, curator, and associate director at the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House (George Eastman Museum), ⁶

Moreover, while VSW reflected an original pedagogical approach to teaching photography in Rochester, the city was well known in photography circles as the location of the George Eastman Museum. The museum held enormous photography and technological collections, a research library, and presented rigorously curated exhibitions, accompanied by catalogs about the history and criticism of photography. The institution’s status as a photography hub led many individuals in the field to travel to Rochester not only to consult the collection, but also to gain access to a major emerging photography social network. To support the growth of photography as art, the Eastman Museum developed an internship program to train curators from all over the world. Thus, as well as pursuing studies in photography, Israeli specialists in the history of photography came to the USA for curatorial experience. Nissan N. Perez, former curator of the photography department at the Israel Museum from 1977 to 2013, spent a year in the internship program at the Eastman Museum from 1978 to 1979 (Perez, n.d.). ⁷

Israel Museum’s photography collection had been initially formed by an American, the portrait photographer Arnold Newman (Gal, 2019). When Perez became curator in 1977, Newman continued to work closely with the department through the Friends of Photography Department program. Perez for his part was critical in the development and documentation of Israeli photographic history. He achieved this not only through collection development, but also by curating exhibitions and publishing exhibition catalogs, often with a focus on Israeli photography. Significant exhibition projects include: Here and Now: Israeli Photography Today, 1982, Focus East: Early Photography in the Near East (1839–1885), 1988, Made to Order; 1989, and Time Frame: A Century of Photography in the Land of Israel, 2000.

Transnational Impacts

While fine art photography in Israel was influenced by contacts with American photographers and American pedagogical ideas, as well critical theories and curatorial practices, this should not simply be seen as having been imposed on the development of fine art photography in Israel. Rather, Israelis deliberately sought out American examples. For many Israeli photographers, the choice to study in the USA was a practical one, as there was no infrastructure in Israel, prior to the mid-1970s, to support photographic art education. Additionally, Israelis supported the growth of American photography by adopting their pedagogies in Israeli institutions and as such were a crucial part of the development of photography worldwide.

An example of the blurring of lines of influence through such social networks can be seen in the profile of the prominent Israeli photographer Micha Bar-Am. Born in Berlin in 1930, Bar-Am immigrated to mandate Palestine in 1936. Soon after, he began photographing kibbutzim with a borrowed camera. His pursuit of photography was solidified when he was charged with covering the Sinai War in 1956 (Bar-Am & Nocke, 2011). The following year, in 1957, Bar-Am became a full-time photographer for Bemahane, the Israeli Army magazine. Thus, his photographic training can be viewed as largely self-motivated and influenced by the photojournalistic approach (Nir, 1995b).

Still, after achieving success in Israel, ⁸

Magnum’s aim was to create a collective, which would allow photographers to have creative rights over their work. At the time, this was a pressing issue for photojournalists as they had little control over their photographs, once in the hands of the publishers. While Magnum photographers identified as photojournalists, their ideas surrounding the definition of reportage photography differed greatly. What united them was their self-identification as authors and their desire to uphold a high standard for the medium. Bar-Am’s inclusion in this organization of photographers solidified him as an active participant in the American photography scene, not as an Israeli interloper, but as a contributing and equal value member.

While Bar-Am was active in the USA, he continued to support the development of Israeli photography. In 1976, he organized with Cornell Capa Israel the Reality, an exhibition of Israeli photography held at the Jewish Museum in New York. The following year, Bar-Am founded the photography department in the Tel-Aviv Art Museum in 1977, creating a significant venue for the display and collection of photography in the country. He continued to act as curator and advisor to the museum for 20 years, until 1997 (Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2019). Thus, Bar-Am is a distinguished example of a transnational link between the USA and Israel, with noteworthy achievements in both Israel and the USA.

Conclusion

Throughout this article, I have descried links, beginning in the 1970s, between American and Israeli photographers and institutions in both countries to demonstrate their interconnectivity. By applying Howard Becker’s definition of the history of art as the forging of social links, it becomes clear that the flourishing of photography as an art form in Israel was dependent upon the creation of strong interdependent social networks. Students, teachers, photographers, curators, and an engaged public, interested in creating, viewing, promoting, and purchasing fine art photography, had to work together to create the field, each relying on the other for support. Education played a central role, offering a platform for the field to grow and take hold in Israel. Academic institutions nurtured art photography in the country by providing employment opportunities for photographers, training for an emerging generation of photographers, and ways to discuss and conceptualize art photography through exhibition venues and publications. Most importantly academic institutions acted as key pivotal forces for the social network that developed and promoted photography as a fine art, both locally and globally.

To summarize, the growth of fine art photography in educational institutions in Israel resulted in at least four major outcomes. First, photography’s inclusion in higher education legitimized photography as a valued medium of personal and artistic expression, leading, in turn, to an expansion of stylistic and conceptual approaches. Second, there was a substantial increase in the number of practicing artist-photographers and thereby, an expansion of photographic output in the country. Third, growing numbers of students completed photography classes, which created a critical mass of individuals who were trained in discerning and appreciating photography as an art form. This led to an educated audience willing to engage with photography as an art medium and support its commerce. Fourth, the academic institutions established galleries and produced publications, forming important venues for photography to be disseminated throughout the country. Such catalogs, books, and magazines created both a support system for students and faculty to publish their works and a permanent record with which to access the history of Israeli photographic education.

Much more, beyond the scope of this article, needs to be researched and written about transnational Israeli-American photographic interrelations. Camera Obscura and Bezalel, as discussed, represent two major examples of programs that emerged. But many other schools began offering photography classes and here too American pedagogical connections can be discerned. For example, in 1978, the Midrasha L’Omanot in Herzliya and Ramat Hasharon began offering a photography program established under the guidance of Micah Kirshner, a graduate of SVA (Raz, 2003). Other programs, like Hadassah Community College in Jerusalem and the University of Haifa, also emerged during the late 1970s. While it is certainly the case, as demonstrated in the research findings for this article, that American photographic networks had a decisive impact on Israeli photographic education production, this relationship was not linear and never progressed in a single direction. In demonstrating how this historical narrative was achieved through a web of social networks, it becomes clear that Israelis also aided American photography through their involvement as students, educators, viewers, and collectors, in these various ways contributing to the development of fine art photography not only in Israel, but also in the USA.