Women botanical-illustrators and their successors in the Israeli culture: merging historical heritage with contemporary art

ABSTRACTExploring the flora and fauna of the land of pre-state Israel stood at the heart of the Zionist venture. Zionist institutions took efforts to educate the Jewish population, trying to connect it to the land by learning it. This involved various ways of familiarising children and adults with their surroundings, with botanical illustration as an important agent working for that cause. This article aims to examine the three botanical women illustrators who contributed significantly to Israeli science and art, followed by three contemporary women artists whose art is inspired by them. Using a methodology combining visual analysis with the artists' interviews, it will be demonstrated how botanical illustration of the past is embedded in contemporary art. Both share a perception of plants as crucial elements populating the planet, and as objects of aesthetic investigation. These perceptions have led to various attitudes: first, exploring the plant in nature and observing it thoroughly throughout the artistic process. Second, the image created remains botanically identifiable, thus echoing a scientific approach. Third, the plant's Hebrew name is sometimes included. The noticeable inspiration of historical illustrators for contemporary artists lies both in the choices of the images themselves and in the practice of creating them.KEYWORDS: Israeli artbotanical illustrationbotanically inspired artbotany and gender AcknowledgementsI am grateful for hours of conversations with the artist Bracha Avigad, who passed away in 2016. Many thanks to Naomi Or-Gil and Udi Huber, Esther Huber's children. Many thanks to Uriel Safriel for his kindness and for sharing Ruth Koppel’s legacy with me. All contemporary artists – Tirtsa Valentine, Nurit Gur-Lavy (Karni) and Shahar Katz – were very cooperative and generous in our conversations. I thank them for sharing their knowledge, thoughts and the artworks with me.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.Notes1 Interview with Uriel Safriel, 10 February 2016, Jerusalem.2 From Koppel’s estate, courtesy of Uriel Safriel.3 Interview with Naomi Or-Gil, Huber's daughter, 10 March 2016, Kfar Ben-Nun.4 Interview with Udi Harel, Huber's son, 30 January 2016, Yuvalim.5 Interview with Naomi Or-Gil, Huber's daughter, 10 March 2016, Kfar Ben-Nun.6 For more information regarding Huber’s art, see Marnin-Distelfeld and Gorney (Citation2019).7 Noga Hareuveni, Ephraim Hareuveni’s son, fulfilled part of the project and established the Neot Kedumim park in 1968. It received the Israel Prize in 1994.8 Interview with Bracha Avigad, 24 April 2016. Kiryat Tivon.9 Ibid.10 Ibid.11 Ibid.12 Artists who can be defined as such include, among others, Avital Geva, Noam Rabinovich, and Noa Raz Melamed.13 As she called herself in an invitation to her exhibition, at: www.uri-rami-museum.co.il/node/142 (Hebrew; accessed 2 May 2017).14 Interview with Bracha Avigad, 6 February 2013, Kiryat Tivon.15 Interview with Tirtsa Valentine, 20 June 2022, Kiryat Tivon.16 Ibid.17 Interview with Nurit Gur-Lavy (Karni), 19 February 2018, Kfar Yona.18 Interview with Shahar Katz, Zoom, 10 June 2022.19 Interview with Shahar Katz, Zoom, 10 June 2023.20 Ibid.21 Interview with Shahar Katz, Zoom, 10 June 2022.22 Interview with Shahar Katz, Zoom, 10 June 2022.Additional informationNotes on contributorsShahar Marnin-DistelfeldShahar Marnin-Distelfeld earned her PhD from the University of Haifa in 2012. She is a faculty member in the Department of Literature, Art and Music at Zefat Academic College and teaches art history classes at Oranim College of Education. She is the curator of Oranim Gallery as well as the Upper-Floor Gallery at the Memorial Centre in Kiryat Tivon. Her studies focus on Israeli visual culture, art and gender, art of second-generation Holocaust survivors and sociology of art.