Scienceיונה פישר

Yona Fisher

Yona Fischer was an Israeli art curator and art critic who won the Israel Prize for Design in 1977.

1932 to 2022Curating contemporary art at the Israel MuseumPromoting conceptual art in IsraelThe 1977 Israel Prize for Design

Born: 20 November 1932, Tel Aviv
Died: 3 March 2022, Tel Aviv
Occupation: exhibition curator, art critic, curator, art historian

Yona Fisher was born in 1932 in Tel Aviv

Yona Fischer was born in Tel Aviv in 1932 to Maurice Fischer and Dina Rizkin, and was named after his grandfather. In 1933 the family moved to Ramat Gan. During World War II he joined his father in Sidon and Beirut, where he attended Alliance schools.

In 1947 he moved to Paris, where his father was political secretary of the Jewish Agency. He studied in Boulogne-Billancourt and later in Villard-de-Lans, and attended art lectures at the Louvre. There he met the painter Avigdor Arikha, who became a lifelong friend.

He returned to Israel in 1951 and joined the IDF, guiding children of new immigrants in the Gadna. After his release in 1954 he settled in Jerusalem.

In 1954 he began working at the Bezalel National Museum and wrote art reviews for newspapers. After training in Amsterdam and Basel from 1959, he became the museum's artistic director at the end of 1960 and showed young Israeli artists.

From 1965 to 1991 he was curator of contemporary art at the Israel Museum. He helped establish post-minimalist and conceptual art in Israel and curated shows such as Concept + Information in 1971. He died in 2022.