Micha Bar-Am

Micha Bar-Am was born in 1930 in Berlin

Micha Bar-Am was born Michael Shmuel Anguli in Berlin in 1930 and grew up in Ulm. His family moved to the Land of Israel in 1936 and settled in Haifa, where his parents opened an ice factory that burned in 1938. At 13 he took the name Bar-Am, and as a youth he was active in the Haganah.

In 1948 he joined the Palmach Harel Brigade. He was a founder of Kibbutz Malkia in 1949 and worked there as a metalworker and welder. He began photographing kibbutz life with borrowed cameras and bought a Leica in 1953.

He photographed the 1956 Sinai campaign, which led to his first book. In 1957 he became a photographer for the army magazine Bamahane, and in 1961 he documented the Eichmann trial. After covering the Six-Day War in 1967, he joined Magnum Photos in 1968 and became the regional photographer for The New York Times until 1992.

In 1974 he helped found the International Center of Photography in New York. From 1977 to 1992 he headed the photography department he established at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. He is married to the artist Orna Bar-Am, has 3 sons, and lives in Ramat Gan.