Lea Nikel (born Nikelsberg) was a Ukrainian-born artist who emigrated with her parents to Palestine in 1920, and grew up in Tel Aviv. Nikel began to study painting in her mid-teens with several influential avant-garde Israeli artists. She continued her education in Paris, where she lived and worked from 1950 to 1961. Nikel drew inspiration from the artistic atmosphere of Paris, consistently exploring a vibrant aesthetic. She also lived in New York and Rome. In 1977, she returned to Israel. Nikel’s lyrical abstract paintings were exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1964 and at a career retrospective at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1995. That same year, Nikel received the Israel Prize for painting, and in 1997, she was named a Chevalier of Arts and Letters by the French minister of culture.
Leaving the museum, our small party walked the fifteen minutes out of the center of town it takes to get to the business end of Theresienstadt, the so-called “Small Fortress.” First constructed in the…
Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer was a weekly comic strip that appeared in the Forward and other newspapers beginning in 1988. Ben Katchor also published what he calls “picture stories” in book…
Plachy took this photograph on one of her many trips to Central and Eastern Europe. A photojournalist, she has said that she is drawn to scenes peripheral to the actual news story. Here, reflections…