Sionah Tagger - Prologue

“I felt I had no right to exist without painting,” Sionah Tagger wrote in preparation for the party held in honor of her 80th birthday. This statement, which appeared in an album of her paintings published in 1981, may serve as the key to understanding Tagger as both an artist and a woman.
Art was Sionah Tagger’s central interest ever since she was old enough to have an opinion of her own. In the face of opposition from her parents, she insisted on studying art at the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, an uncommon choice in the traditional environment in which she had grown up. Her parents allowed her to move to Jerusalem only after she agreed to live with her grandfather. Traveling to Paris for the same purpose was even more unthinkable. It was only thanks to her conviction concerning the independent path she had chosen to pursue – “through painting, I connect to life,” and to her uncompromising persistence, that her parents allowed her to travel so far from the world in which she had grown up. Her strong character traits enabled her to remain true to her calling over the years and under varying circumstances.
Sionah Tagger’s most accomplished paintings are among the classics of Israeli art. She was one of the founders of the Painters and Sculptors Association, and regularly participated in local art exhibitions. She was awarded the Dizengoff Prize (1937), and represented Israel at the Venice Biennale (1948). She was also one of the founders of the artists’ colony in Safed. There is no doubt that she has earned her place in the pantheon of Israeli art. Within this select group of pioneering Israeli artists, she is distinguished both as a woman and as a native Israeli.