Vera Tamari

{{Short description|Palestinian art historian, visual artist, educator (b. 1945)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Vera Tamari

| native_name = فيرا تماري

| native_name_lang = ar

| other_names = Vira Tamari

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1945}}

| birth_place = Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine (now Israel)

| education = Beirut College for Women, University of Oxford

| occupation = Visual artist, art historian, museum founder, curator, educator

| organization = League of Palestinian Artists

| known_for = Palestinian art and architectural history, Palestinian activist, ceramics, bas relief, sculpture, installation art, painting

| movement = New Visions

}}

Vera Tamari ({{Langx|ar|فيرا تماري}}; born 1945) is a Palestinian visual artist, art historian, curator and educator. She is known for artwork in ceramics, sculpture, painting, and installation art. Tamari taught at Birzeit University for many years. She founded the Birzeit Museum of Ethnography and Art. Tamari lives in Ramallah, West Bank.{{Cite web |title=فيرا تماري |url=https://daratalfunun.org/?artist=vera-tamari&lang=ar |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427071535/https://daratalfunun.org/?artist=vera-tamari&lang=ar |archive-date=April 27, 2022 |website=Darat Al Funun, Khalid Shoman Foundation |language=ar}}

Early life and education

Vera Tamari was born in 1945, in Jerusalem, to parents from Jaffa.{{Cite web |last=Sherwell |first=Tina |date=September 5, 2016 |title=Tamari, Vera (1945–) |url=https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/tamari-vera-1945 |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240424023418/https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/tamari-vera-1945 |archive-date=2024-04-24 |access-date=2024-12-12 |website=Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781135000356-REM916-1}} Her mother Margo Dabbas was a visual artist, as well as her older brother Vladimir Tamari (1942–2017).{{Cite web |last=Voskirchian |first=Talin |date=October 16, 2023 |title=فيرا تماري: حياة من أجل الفن الفلسطيني |trans-title=Vera Tamari: A Life for Palestinian Art |url=https://themarkaz.org/ar/vera-tamaris-lifetime-of-palestinian-art/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231017174631/https://themarkaz.org/ar/vera-tamaris-lifetime-of-palestinian-art/ |archive-date=October 17, 2023 |website=مراجعة مركز (Markaz Review) |language=ar}}{{Cite web |title=Vladimir Tamari |url=http://museum.birzeit.edu/artists/vladimir-tamari |access-date=2024-12-13 |website=Birzeit Museum}} She was three years old in 1948 during the Nakba, and her family moved to Jaffa temporarily.{{Cite web |last=Zidane |first=Badiaa |date=April 25, 2024 |title=فيرا تماري تسرد ذكريات أسرتها المسكونة بالعودة! |trans-title=Vera Tamari Recounts Her Family's Haunted Memories of Returning |url=https://www.al-ayyam.ps/ar/Article/399689/%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%AF-%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A3%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%83%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%A9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240609120624/https://www.al-ayyam.ps/ar/Article/399689/%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%AF-%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A3%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%83%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A9-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%A9 |archive-date=June 9, 2024 |website=Al Ayam |language=ar}}

She received a B.A. degree in 1966 in fine arts from Beirut College for Women (now the Lebanese American University); and received a M.Phil. degree in 1984 in Islamic art and architecture from the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Additionally she had studied ceramics from 1972 to 1974 in Florence, Italy.

Career

Tamari joined the faculty in the architecture department at Birzeit University in 1986, where she taught art history and visual communication for nearly twenty years. She founded the Birzeit Museum of Ethnography and Art in 2005 in Birzeit, West Bank; and the Virtual Communication Gallery, which operated from 2005 until 2010, to facilitate art cultural exchange with the Palestinian diaspora.{{Cite web |title=فيرا تماري |url=http://museum.birzeit.edu/ar/artists/%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231118170757/http://museum.birzeit.edu/ar/artists/%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A |archive-date=November 18, 2023 |website=متحف جامعة بيرزيت |language=ar}}

Tamari has worked in ceramics, sculpture, and installation art. Her artwork is a nod to Palestinian ceramics history, and touches on themes of identity and memory.

Tamari was one of the founding members of the League of Palestinian Artists ({{Langx|ar|رابطة الفنانين الفلسطينيين}}) art collective in 1973, the other founding artists included Karim Dabbah, Taysir Sharaf, Nabil Anani, Kamel Mughanni, Tayseer Barakat, Fathi Ghabin, Issam Badr, Suleiman Mansour, Fatin Tubasi, Samira Badran, and Yusuf Duwayk.{{Cite web |title=Palestinian Visual Arts (III) |url=https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/10591/palestinian-visual-arts-iii |access-date=2024-12-13 |website=Palquest |language=en}} The group wanted to created Palestinian visual art on native land. She has also been a founding member of the Palestinian art movement, New Visions ({{langx|ar|نحو التجريب والإبداء|translit=Nahwa al-Tajrib wa al-Ibda'}}).{{Cite news |last=Kadi |first=Samar |title=How Palestinian art evolved under siege |url=https://thearabweekly.com/how-palestinian-art-evolved-under-siege |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240724212056/https://thearabweekly.com/how-palestinian-art-evolved-under-siege |archive-date=2024-07-24 |access-date=2024-12-13 |work=Arab Weekly (AW) |language=en}} In 1987, the New Visions art group was founded by Tamari, Tayseer Barakat, Sliman Mansour, and Nabil Anani.{{Cite book |last=Aboubakr |first=Randa |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rmtjEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT308 |title=Spaces of Participation: Dynamics of Social and Political Change in the Arab World |last2=Freitag |first2=Ulrike |last3=Jurkiewicz |first3=Sarah |last4=Ait-Mansour |first4=Hicham |date=2021-04-06 |publisher=American University in Cairo Press |isbn=978-1-64903-053-5 |pages=308 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Ankori |first1=Gannit |url=https://archive.org/details/palestinianart0000anko |title=Palestinian Art |date=2006 |isbn=978-1861892591 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/palestinianart0000anko/page/223 223] |url-access=registration}}{{Cite journal |last1=Anani |first1=Yazid |last2=Toukan |first2=Hanan |date=2014 |title=On Delusion, Art, and Urban Desires in Palestine Today: An Interview with Yazid Anani |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24877904 |journal=The Arab Studies Journal |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=208–229 |issn=1083-4753 |jstor=24877904}} As a group the members of New Visions had pledge to make art with naturally found materials, in order to divest from spending money on Israeli art supplies.

Publications

{{cite book |last1=Amiry |first1=Suad |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M8YTGbL5sQ8C |title=The Palestinian Village Home |last2=Tamari |first2=Vera |author-link2=Vera Tamari |date=1 January 1989 |publisher=Trustees of the British Museum |isbn=978-0-7141-1599-3 |page=17}}