Genia Berger

Genia Berger was born in 1907 in Kharkiv

Berger was born in Kharkov in 1907 to a traditional Zionist family. Her father was an agronomist and industrialist who was active in Zionist circles. Her mother played piano and painted as an amateur.

In 1925 she moved to Berlin and then reached Jaffa, settling in Tel Aviv. There she studied architecture at the Technion Montefiore and painting with Yitzhak Frenkel. In 1929 she returned to Berlin and studied painting and set design at the Academy of Fine Arts under Karl Hofer.

She left Berlin in 1933 and returned to Palestine, where she designed the set for The Threepenny Opera at the Ohel Theater. From 1935 to 1937 she studied in Paris. For years she worked mainly on set design for theater and opera, including Bar Kokhba at Ohel in 1945 and Khovanshchina for the Israel National Opera in 1952.

In 1953 she was among the founders of Ein Hod. In the 1950s she went back to painting and began sculpting and making ceramic reliefs. She received prizes in 1971, 1984 and 1986, and died in 2000.