Kopel Gurwin

From Vilna to Israel

Born Kopel (Kopke) Gurwitz on December 28, 1923, in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania, Gurwin was raised in a traditional Jewish home. His father Mordechai was a shoemaker and his mother Malka was a housekeeper. Kopel and his older brother Moshe spoke Yiddish at home while learning Hebrew at school through the Tarbut educational network. He was also active in the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement.

During the 1930s, as a teenager assisting with family finances, Kopel worked in a suit workshop, where he was first introduced to fabrics and the craft of sewing.

Following the German invasion of Vilna during the Second World War, the Jewish population was forced into ghettos and labor camps. Kopel and Moshe were separated from their parents, who were deported to the Stutthof concentration camp and died of typhus. Their twelve-year-old sister Chava was murdered.

After surviving grueling forced labor in coal mines and peat bogs, imprisonment in Stutthof, and a brutal death march, Kopel and Moshe were liberated. In July 1946, they arrived in Helsingborg, Sweden, aboard the "white boats" organized with UNRRA for the medical rehabilitation of ill survivors. Once recovered, Gurwin worked in a publishing house and directed the local branch of the Halutz movement.

In 1950, Kopel and Moshe made aliyah to Israel. Kopel initially worked as a surveyor for the Survey of Israel. In 1951, he enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces Communication Corps as a military draftsman, where he won first prize for designing the cover of the corps bulletin.

Bezalel and the Graphic Years

Following his military discharge at age 29, Gurwin enrolled at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem to study drawing and graphics from 1954 to 1957.

At Bezalel, he studied under prominent figures of Israeli art, including Isidor Ascheim, Shlomo Vitkin, Yossi Stern, and Jacob Steinhardt. Steinhardt’s expressive woodcut techniques and mastery of line left a profound impression on Gurwin’s developing sense of contour and typography.

Gurwin excelled throughout his studies, receiving the Reuben and Sarah Lif Award for Distinction in Calligraphy Studies at the end of his first year. In 1956, he was awarded first prize by the Lethem Foundation in California for poster design and won the prestigious Hermann Struck Prize for his drawing on the subject of Jerusalem, which was presented to Foreign Minister Golda Meir. In 1957, he won an additional first prize for poster design from the Lethem Foundation and second place from the printing company Ortzel for a drawing for a Jewish New Year greeting card.

Poster Design

Gurwin quickly established himself as one of Israel’s preeminent graphic artists, celebrated for his celebratory and institutional posters that captured the optimism and national identity of the young state.

In 1958, he won first prize in a competition to design a poster for Tel Aviv’s jubilee. In 1960, he earned both first and third prizes in the 12th Israel Independence Day poster competition, alongside first prize for the official poster marking the 25th Zionist Congress.

His poster triumphs continued throughout the decade: he swept first and second prizes for the 1964 Independence Day poster on the theme of aliyah, and won first prize again in 1968 for Israel’s 20th Independence Day. The 1968 poster, designed with the grandeur of a Holy Ark curtain featuring two lions flanking a menorah, was selected for the cover of Geoffrey Wigoder’s volume Jewish Art and Civilization and the historic audio album Voices of 20 Years, 1948–1968. In April 1971, he won first prize in the Independence Day competition for an unprecedented fourth time.

Finding the Medium

Following his graduation from Bezalel, Gurwin moved to Tel Aviv and joined the graphics and exhibition design studio of Shmuel Grundman, traveling across Europe to design and supervise Israeli national exhibition pavilions.

During his time at Grundman’s studio, Gurwin encountered fibrous felt. Drawn to its dense texture, saturated matte color, and crisp edges when cut, he recognized in felt the ideal material to translate his graphic and typographic sensibilities into tactile, dimensional art.

In 1964, at the Levant Fair exhibition in Tel Aviv, Gurwin used felt mounted onto wooden panels for the first time. His first large-scale felt work was created for the American Cultural Center in Jerusalem, depicting the United States Declaration of Independence across a wooden panel measuring 2.85 by 1.85 meters. Sourcing premium rolls of wool felt directly from France, he embarked on a dedicated practice focused on biblical stories and Jewish themes.

A Visual Language of His Own

Gurwin forged an instantly recognizable visual signature characterized by luminous color harmonies, ornamental richness, and a harmonious balance between figure and decorative pattern.

Each wall hanging was typically structured around three core components: a central biblical or allegorical narrative, an elaborate ornamental border of stylized flora, fauna, and geometric repetition, and integrated Hebrew lettering.

Rather than treating text as a supplementary caption, Gurwin elevated Hebrew letters to a primary visual and architectural element, designing monumental square letterforms that framed the composition like a crown. Drawing inspiration from traditional Eastern European Jewish folk art, illuminated manuscripts, and the decorative rhythms of Middle Eastern ornament, his works also resonated with the playful flat planes and geometric abstraction of modern masters such as Paul Klee and Henri Matisse.

How He Worked

Gurwin’s artistic process was rigorous, meditative, and entirely hands-on. Every wall hanging was built up through multi-layered cut felt appliqué, often comprising three or more distinct layers of fabric.

Working without assistants for his studio pieces, he outlined and anchored every shape using fine, hand-sewn blanket stitches in black embroidery thread. This continuous black contour line served not only a structural purpose, securing the felt to the base fabric, but also an aesthetic one—defining contours, separating adjoining colors, and lending his tapestries the luminous intensity of stained glass or illuminated parchment.

He worked with extraordinary color intuition, layering saturated reds, deep blues, ochres, and emerald greens until the composition reached optical equilibrium.

Recognition and International Exhibitions

Interior designer Alufa Koljer-Elem introduced Gurwin to Ruth Dayan, founder and director of the pioneering Israeli craft enterprise Maskit. Recognizing his unique gift, Dayan invited him to mount the inaugural exhibition at the newly founded Maskit 6 gallery in Tel Aviv. Opening on September 10, 1967, the solo exhibition showcased 12 monumental wall hangings to widespread public and critical acclaim.

Following the success at Maskit 6, Meira Gera, director of artistic activities at the America-Israel Cultural Foundation, organized an exhibition of Gurwin’s works at the Foundation’s New York gallery. The show generated extensive international press coverage and was invited to the New York Jewish Museum, where it was exhibited for several months before embarking on an extensive tour across museum venues in the United States.

Subsequent solo and group exhibitions followed at leading Israeli venues, including the Delson-Richter Gallery in Old Jaffa and the Jerusalem Theatre.

Works Beyond the Studio

Gurwin’s mastery of textile art led to ambitious architectural and community commissions across Israel and abroad. In 1974, he was commissioned by the Sisterhood of Congregation Beth Shalom in Kansas City to design a monumental tapestry measuring 5.40 by 2.70 meters on the theme of the Garden of Eden, created collaboratively with the women of the congregation.

Gurwin drafted the comprehensive master design and divided it across 50 dedicated embroidery canvas panels, specifying over 200 distinct shades from a specialized wool yarn catalog. Over two years, seventy women congregants completed more than two million hand stitches following his precise instructions.

Other notable international commissions include a 4.0 by 2.0 meter creation appliqué for the Church of the Good Samaritan in Miami depicting the Seven Days of Creation, concluding with the Hebrew word "Hallelujah" on the Sabbath panel. In 1978 and 1981, his lyrical tapestry "The Time for Singing Has Arrived" was selected by UNICEF for its international greeting card collection.

The Israeli Philatelic Service issued official postage stamps featuring Gurwin’s holy ark curtain tapestries and his award-winning Independence Day poster design.

Private Life and Later Work

At the end of the 1960s, Kopel met Hannah Brooks, an accomplished textile and industrial designer who wove custom artistic fabrics for high-end fashion designers. The couple collaborated on integrated textile commissions for hotels and civic spaces.

Kopel and Hannah married in September 1974 and in 1980 relocated to the coastal village of Beit Yanai, where Gurwin established a spacious home studio surrounded by Mediterranean light and nature.

In 1979, the family founded Kol Ha’Tor Ltd., a dedicated venture to oversee the production, licensing, and fine-art editions of his textile designs.

Kopel Gurwin passed away on April 18, 1990, at the age of 66, due to heart disease. He was survived by his wife Hannah and their two children, Boaz and Shira.

Legacy

Gurwin’s tapestries, ark curtains, and graphic works grace prestigious public institutions, synagogues, and private collections in Israel and internationally. Among these are permanent installations at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the VIP reception hall at Ben Gurion Airport, the Kfar Saba Theatre, and the Tel Aviv Plaza Hotel.

In 1995, an extensive memorial exhibition of his works was held at the Knesset in Jerusalem, honoring his enduring contribution to Israeli visual culture.

Today, the Estate of Kopel Gurwin preserves the artist’s archival holdings, documents his original textile pieces and historic posters, and oversees authentic fine art reproductions that celebrate his joyous vision, vibrant palette, and tactile craftsmanship.