Below is Tatiana's biography, as she wrote it 3 years before she died (that is, in 2000).

Tatiana Kofyan (center) at her personal exhibition in Tel Aviv.

My name is Tatiana Kofyan. I have decided to start this site on a subject of great interest to me: the Russian Art in the first half of the 20-th century.

While I find the artists, their works, scan and process the pictures (yes, I have gone so far with the technology as to actually use complicated graphical computer programs), and write the basic texts, my daughter, Vera, has made this dream come true, putting together all the mystical computer side of the site, namely the design and structure, the navigation and all these other incomprehensible words. She also helps make the small biography texts readable in English, and helps translate other texts.

I have had the good fortune to come across the Russian Avant-Garde for the first time over 40 years ago, in 1959. A group of students of the Institute of Art, and I among them, was allowed into the storage cellars of the Russian museum in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Paintings by artists totally unfamiliar to us were hanging close together all over the stands - Chagall, Petrov-Vodkin, Filonov and many others. This collection was astonishing in its dissimilarity to everything in the upstairs exposition. Later I have met some of the old artists, who have been working in the far 20s and 30s, and even with some of Malevich's pupils, faithful to their grand instructor's teachings.

Tatiana Kofyan working at home on the "Guide to the Mammals in Israel" book.

I was born in 1941 in Leningrad, studied at the Institute of Art and later graduated from the Academy of Arts in 1969 in that same city. I work in the style of romantic realism, paint in oil and watercolor. I also use various graphic techniques such as etching, linocut and others, illustrate books for both children and adults, make precise drawings for archaeologists, zoologists and botanists. I also do various other things that most any artist is obliged to do these days - hand-drawn postcards, computer graphics and design.

My family and I immigrated to Israel in 1979, and we live in Kfar Sava with my husband Michael, and my son Jonathan. My eldest daughter Vera and her son Oded now live in a northern village close to the Lebanese border. We keep a white cat (though he is certain it's he who keeps us), who was unfortunately born deaf, so his name is immaterial.

I invite you to view some of my own work (and will add family pictures at a later time), to allow you to get to know me a little better.

Watercolors

An Evening on the Small River Poleg, by Netanya, Israel. 1998.

Oils

Early Work

Archaeology Drawings

For many years Tatiana has worked in archaeological drawing for several leading archaeologists in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa. Her drawings accompanied their discoveries in journals and periodicals published in Israel and abroad.

It all began when my mother was accepted to work in Israel Museum in Jerusalem, for the renown archaeologist Ruth Amiran (you may learn more about her at the Brown University website, Wikipedia, Jewish Women's Archive, or just by doing a search), in the early 1980s. I used to visit the museum several times a week and grew to know everybody in the archaeological department. The process of matching pottery pieces and then painstakingly restoring ancient pots and jugs was fascinating to discover and participate, for a while.

Then we moved to a different city, and Tatiana began doing this work from home, for several arachaeologists, one of them - the world famous Dr.Gabi Barkay (you may learn more about him at the Wikipedia website, or by doing a search). She would receive cardboard boxes full of indistinguisahble (to my eyes) pottery shards, black lumps of corroded metal, ancient terracota oil lamps or aquaduct elements - and feel this exalted wonder at their age and history. What I, as a teenager, saw as a boring lump of matter, she perceived thousands of years worth of human history in the land of Israel. I know now that she was right.

Tatiana Kofyan (left) receiving work for archaeologists.

Then Dr.Gabi Barkay has brought to her one of his most famous finds: small silver plaques containing the priestly benediction from the Book of Numbers. To me they looked like pieces of crumpled metal foil, but they filled my mother with rapturous delight. She respected and admired Dr.Barkay very much, reverred him for his unorthodox and rather daring methods to pursue his hunches where other archaeologist were stumped by difficulties. This extraudinary find was published in the journal "Cathedra", number 52, in the summer of 1989. Below, I bring some of the drawings from this issue, kindly provided by Yad Ben Zvi publishing, since I do not have the issue. The article appeared, naturally, in Hebrew. You may find some more on it here.

The Ketef Hinom site has yielded a lot of amazing material, and it has been published in various sources. I bring drawings from some of them below.

In addition, I wanted to give you an idea of what this process looked like, and I have chosen a number of her raw pencil drawings, sketches, which were done and then transferred to the pen and ink versions published in periodicals.

Any additions to this page shall be announced in the What's New page and the Newsletter (see Archive).

Published Drawings

Judaica

Among the many different things Tatiana has done in her life as an artist in Israel was some work in the field of Judaica.

Judaica may be called the Jewish "applied art", because usually the target is not the art, but the application thereof. Naturally, there was application of art in any and every religion and culture, not just Judaism. However, usually, the art was also directed in the pure art, for the glory of God, for beauty - such as paintings and sculpture, or for personal decoration. Judaism did not allow paintings and sculpture in general, but that did not mean there were no artists. Therefore the artists had to divert and express their talent in other ways, still acceptable for the culture.

Judaica is the things used in Judaism for ritual and culture: metal workers make beautiful candle holders; Hannukiot (Hannukah candle holder); Menoras; kidush (wine blessing) goblets; cups for washing hands; tops of Torah scrolls; finger-pointer for reading the scripture; Passover platters; etc., mostly silver, but sometimes from other metals as well. The porcelain artists make certain items for kosher eating; Passover platters; Mazzah plates; Khalah (Sabbath bread) platters and other necessary items. Then there are documents richly decorated with ornaments, such as Ketubah (the marriage document); scripture; Psalms; Passover Hagadah (tale); the books of Esther or Ruth etc. Later there was the work of glass and stained-glass windows, for synagogues, the making of lanterns and furniture for the same, some architecture. Synagogues were never glorious or richly decorated, for many reasons, one of which was instability of life, but another, no less important, was the prohibition on certain forms of art and the reluctance to experiment in that field for fear of overstepping the thin boundary. Good workmanship and simplicity was usually more than enough, in stark contrast to the wealth of art

Tatiana has taken part in decorating a number of various Judaica documents. Sadly, the only origin for the pictures is photos she has taken of these works before giving them to the ordering party. These are not good quality, but all that I have. Still, I would like to give you a glimpse of Tatiana's versatility in the fields of her work, so I have done all I can to make them as presentable as possible.

Any additions to this page shall be announced in the What's New page and the Newsletter (see Archive).

Judaica Documents

"The Word and the Deed" (Slovo i Delo), by Valentin Pikul. Vol. I+II.

Lenizdat, 1974. Leno-cuts.

As an unexpected and unique surprize, I have included wih some of the illustrations the original linocut plates. Many of you have never seen what they look like. I have been fortunate to have watched them being cut.

"The ShkID Republic", by G.Belykh and L.Panteleev. Karelia, 1979.

An autobiographical novel, describing the life of orphan boys at the ShkID (school by the name of Dostoyevsky), at the very beginning of the USSR.

This book includes 76 colored and 31 black-and-white illustrations.

Watercolor, and colored pencils, in three-color spectrum. Chapter intro pictures done in graphite pencil on paper.

Note: Eleven original pictures are missing. Some of them were scanned from the printed book, however the quality there is low. As soon as the originals are located I shall replace them.

Flash page-flipping e-book

For purposes of supporting this website, this book was also turned into a full Flash-page-flipping e-book. You may purchase it at any time through contacting us, and by this help support our website. It would also make an excellent gift!

On other ways to support us see page Make a Difference (it will not affect your browsing).

"A Guide to Mammals in Israel", by Benny Shalmon.