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Yaacov Agam (Gibstein), Israeli, born 1928, active France and Israel.

Yaakov Agam was born in Rishon Lezion, then a small town, to a religious family. His father was a rabbi with an interest in Kabbalah and Jewish spirituality. As a youngster, he studied with various religious tutors at the synagogue because there was no local religious school. In 1936, he witnessed a terrorist attack which affected him deeply. In 1940, he began to paint, influenced by Irving Stone's book Lust for Life. In 1945, he was jailed for eight months by the British administration on suspicion of belonging to the underground.

In 1946, he studied at the Bezalel School in Jerusalem. At the urging of Mordechai Ardon, he went to study in Zurich in 1949, where he encountered the constructivist art theories of the Bauhaus school. In 1951, he moved to Paris and developed ties with the city's Surrealist artists. At first, he earned a living teaching at a seminary run by the Jewish Agency. In 1953, he first created Polyphonic Pictures, kinetic works that change with the shifting perspective of the viewer. In 1967, he produced his first sculptures, and in 1986, began using stainless steel. In 1996, he won the UNESCO Education Prize, acknowledging the unique program he designed for early childhood visual education.

Agam makes use of Jewish-Kabbalistic iconography that he turns into abstract images. Many of his works feature opposites that merge in keeping with the thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic. Among his best known works are Salon Agam (1971–75) commissioned for the Elysée Palace in Paris, his Fire and Water Fountain (1986) at Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv and the facade of the Dan Hotel (1986) in Tel Aviv.He designed and created the winner's trophy for the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest which was held in Jerusalem.

Education

1946 New Bezalel, Jerusalem
1949 Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, Switzerland
1949 History of Art and Music, Zurich University, Zurich, Switzerland, with Johannes Itten
1951 School of Abstract Art, Paris, France
1951 Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris, France

Teaching

1967 Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
1983 Hebrew Academy, San Francisco, California, USA
1983 Visual Education, Yavne
1985 Visual Education. Weizmann Institute, Rehovot

Awards And Prizes

1963 Prize for Artistic Research, Sao Paolo Biennale, San Paolo, Brazil
1972 Sandberg Prize for Israeli Art, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1976 Honorary Citizen of Alabama, USA
1996 UNESCO Prize for Education, Jan Amos Comenius Medal for the "Agam Method" for visual education for young children

Environmental Sculptures

1965 "Double Metamorphosis III"
1969 Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital, Birmingham, Alabama, USA, "Complex Vision"
1971 "18 Levels" Jerusalem
1975 "Fountains", Paris, France, La Defense District,
1985 "Roots", Menorah in Bernard Garden, Tel Aviv;
1986 "Fire and Water", Dizengoff Square, Tel Aviv.;
1989 "Visual Music Orchestration" Works mainly in Paris;
2002 "Wheels" - at the portal of Yad Sarah, Jerusalem.
2009 "Peaceful Communication With The World", Kaohsiung, Taiwan
2010 Hanukkah Menorah, New York City, USA
2014 Vatican City, Rome, Italy, "Faith-Visual Pray"