Mirit Cohen

Manya Malka (later Mirit) Cohen) was born in Russia 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 Rebecca. After the war, her family immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. They were deported to a detention camp in Cyprus. In 1948, after the establishment of Israel, the family settled in Givat Shmuel.

In 1956 Cohen was sent to study at Kibbutz Kfar Masaryk. In 1958 she 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 she became active in the Communist youth movement in Petah Tikva. For her last years in high school she attended Hadash High School in Tel Aviv.

After her military service, Cohen worked as a clerk in the Israel Export Institute in the textile and fashion department. In 1968 she studied at the Avni Institute of Art and Design with Yehezkel Streichman. In 1969 she enrolled at the "Midrasha" drawing and art school in Tel Aviv.

In the early 1980s she was briefly married to Michael Dissent. Under the influence of LSD Cohen experienced a psychotic attack and was hospitalized in Bat Yam.

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

In 1972 Cohen had her first exhibition at Dugit Gallery in Tel Aviv. In 1974 the Israeli curator Yona Fisher bought some of her works for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

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 in 1975 - 1977, after which she continued to live in the United States.

• 1977 Graduated from School of Visual Arts, New York City, USA.
• 1971 Graduated from Teachers College of Art, Ramat Hsharon, Israel
• 1968 Studied at Avni Art Institute with Yehezkel Streichman, Tel-Aviv, Israel
• 1967 Graduated from Kalisher Art College, Tel-Aviv, Israel

• 1995 Ministry of Culture and Education, Museums and Visual Arts Dep., Israel
• 1978 Con Edison Artist In Residence Program, NY
• 1975-77 American Israel Cultural Foundation. Art and Urban Resources, New York City
• 1969-71 Sharet Grant. Pnina Mandleblit Fund, Israel

• 2000-07 Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany.
• 2000 The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC., USA
• 2000 The Phoenix Collection of Israeli Art.
• 1997 The walker Museum, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
• 1974-95 The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.
• 1975 The Israeli embassy, Washington DC, USA
• 1976-99 The Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv.

• 2008 Haaretz, Dana Gilerman.
• 2006 Haaretz, Dalia Manor, Highlights from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. August 6, 2006
• 2000 Art in America, April 2000, USA. Hayr, Ruti Deirector, May 5, 2000; "Private Wall" Benno Kalev collection: Haaretz, Uzi Zur, May 12 (p 14b); Maariv, Adam Baruch, April 28; "Family Tie" Hayr, Ruti Deirector, May 5, 2000.
• 1999 New York Times, November 26, 1999. The Jewish Week, November 26, 1999.
• 1998 Various German news papers in Ulm and Berlin, Germany. August / September 1998.
• 1991 Yediot Ahchronot America, "To Fuse the Broken," Riki Turk. Cover Magazine, "Mirit Cohen," Alan Moore.
• 1983 "Second Visit," from the Gordon Gallery collection, Gabi Ben Jano
• 1981 National Arts Guide (Exxon Guggenheim Exhibit), Peter Frank, New York City
• 1977 Yediot Ahchronot, Israeli Artist in New York, Adam Baruch.
• 1972-77 Art Magazines: Gazit (1972), Musage (1975), Kave (1984), and many principal Israeli newspapers

• 2006 Highlights from the Tel Aviv Museum, Dr. Mordechai Omer (ed), 100 years of Art in Israel, Gidon Ofrat.
• 2000 Wool From The Loom, Ed. Nathan Wasserman, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Magnes Press.
• 2000 The Seventh Column / Natan Alterman. Israeli Art from Benno Kalev Collection, United Kibbutz Publication.
• 1987 "The Redefinition of Art in Israel", Art in Israel by Amnon Barzel. Milan, Italy
• The New Generation, Gideon Offrat & Binyamin Tamuz.
• Israeli Art History, Gila Cohen-Ballas

• Israeli art