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Meir Agassi, Israeli, 1947-1998.

Meir Agassi was born in 1947 on Kibbutz Ramat HaKovesh. In 1968 he began to publish poetry and short stories in various journals. Among others he published the book of poetry Clouds Sculpt Shapes (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1969) and the novel The Black Hills of Dakota (Or Yehuda: Zmora Bitan, 1984). From 1975 to 1976 he was co-editor of the journal Musag, and from 1978 to 1980 he was co-editor of the journal Monitin. During the1980s he emigrated to England. In spite of this, he did not cut himself off from Israeli culture. From 1990 he began to publish critical articles and essays in the art journal Studio. In addition he wrote the monographs Zaritsky: Watercolors and (Tel Aviv: Gorden Gallery, 1992), and Yehiel Shemi’s Papers (1998). In 1998 he was killed in an automobile accident.

Agassi’s early works in the 1970s were primarily portraits portraying himself and his relationship to art. In the 1980s he began to develop the idea of his work as a multi-voiced “museum.” To this end, he created pseudonyms, among them “Mo Cramer,” “David Strauss,” and “Susan Lipsky.” The works produced by these pseudonyms included prints, notebooks of prints, and collages with biographical content.

Education

1963-1965 Avni Institute, Tel Aviv.
1991-1994 University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, B.A. in Fine Art

Awards And Prizes

1980-81, BIARTS – British Israeli Cultural Cooperation Grant
1980-81, Artist-in-residence, Fine Arts Department, Leeds Polytechnic, Leeds, England
1994 Rebecca Smith Prize, The University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, England