Mirit Cohen

Mirit Cohen
Born Mania Malcha Cohen
1945
Russia
Died May 3, 1990
New York City, U.S.A
Nationality Israeli
Known for sculpture, painting
Movement Israeli Art

Mirit Cohen (1945, Russia - May 3, 1990, New York City, USA) was a Russian-born Israeli artist. Cohen resided in New York City since 1975. In 1990 Cohen committed suicide by jumping from a building in New York.[1]

Biography

Cohen was born in Russia in 1945 under the name Maniya Malka to a socialist and Zionist family. Her father, Haim Cohen, a Polish Jew, was born in Lodz, and fled during the Second World War to Russia, where he met her mother Rebeca. After the war, her family immigrated, in an Italian ship, to the region of Palestine under the British Mandate. Soon after arriving they were deported to a detention camp in Cyprus. In 1948, after the establishment of Israel, the family immigrated and settled in the State of Israel in Givat Shmuel.

In 1956 Cohen was sent to study at kibbutz Kfar Masaryk due to economic distress. In 1958 a drawing she created won a youth drawing competition in Japan. Three years later, Cohen moved back with her parents and began attending high school in Bnei Brak. During this period has she became active in the Communist youth movement in Petah Tikva. The last years in high school she studied at the Hadash High School in Tel Aviv after getting a scholarship.

After her military service, Cohen worked as a clerk in the Israel Export Institute in the textile and fashion department. She enrolled in a theater class in the "Beit Zvi" acting school, nevertheless in 1966 she began studying painting at the a painting school in Tel Aviv at a class thought by Ariye Margoshinsky. In 1968 she studied at the Avni Institute of Art and Design in Ezekiel Streichman's class and in 1969 she enrolled at the "Midrasha" drawing and art school in Tel Aviv.

In 1972 Cohen had her first exhibition in the "Dugit Gallery" in Tel Aviv. In the following years she had various exhibitions in galleries in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and more. In 1974 the notable Israeli curator Jonah Fisher bought some of her works for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Under the influence of LSD Cohen experienced a psychotic attack and was hospitalized in the Abarbanel Psychiatric hospital in Bat Yam.

In the spring of 1975 Cohen won a scholarship from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. With the help of this scholarship she studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York during the years 1975 - 1977, after which she continued to live in the United States. During the early 1980s she married Michael Dissent although they soon got divorced in 1982.

In 1990 Cohen committed suicide by jumping from a building in New York. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in the Queens Borough.

Cohen's expressive works exist in various collections including the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC., the Arturo Schwarz collection at the Israel Museum, a collection of Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and more.

Education

Exhibitions

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

Awards

Public Collections

Selected Reviews

Selected Books

References

  1. ↑ Karpel, Dalia (29 April 2011). "Live fast, die young". Haaretz.com. Retrieved 15 October 2011.
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