Jacob Agor

Jacob Agor (1911-1996)

Born in Ukraine, he immigrated with his family to Germany. In 1923, he was sent to Palestine and studied in the prestigious Hebrew Reali School in Haifa and the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv. In 1926, he returned to Germany and studied painting in Nurnberg. In the Second World War, he served as an officer in the Polish Army and later fled to the Soviet Union where he worked as a movie set designer. In 1954-58 he stayed in Poland and worked as a theater photographer.
In 1958, Agor immigrated with his family to Israel and settled in Tel Aviv. During the 1960s he photographed for Uri Avneri’s HaOlam HaZeh weekly news magazine, and from 1963 until the late 1980s he photographed for the Haaretz weekly supplement. Agor was also chief photographer of Habima Theater, and also photographed Batsheva from its early years until 1978. In the course of his career, Agor made photographic portraits of many leading artists, with the documentation of dance and theater performances – as well as important national functions – forming the lion’s share of his oeuvre. Agor tended not to stage his photographs and use existing lighting, and these are typical characteristics of his works. In 1986, due to his faltering eyesight, he abandoned photography in favor of painting and drawing.
Most of Agor’s estate is currently stored at the Israeli Center for the Documentation of the Performing Arts at the University of Tel Aviv. In 2011, a retrospective exhibition of Agor’s artwork was held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, accompanied by the publication of a dedicated book.
Agor’s son, Alex – also a photographer – lives in New York and cultivates his father’s legacy.