My Encounter with Death: Not a Struggle, but a Surprisingly Pleasant Experience
Dar Moussafir
For many years, the Israeli art establishment overlooked Hava Raucher, yet she continued to create with stubborn persistence. Now, at 80, as she finally receives the recognition she deserves with her exhibition "For the Living and the dead," she opens up in an interview about her encounter with death ("I learned to befriend it"), the challenge of addressing body images that defy beauty ideals ("Society finds it hard to accept"), and why she isn't afraid of Artificial Intelligence.
When Hava Raucher is asked who she is, she replies: "I am an old artist with balls." We meet on the occasion of her exhibition, "For the Living and the dead," at the Tel Aviv Artists' House, which closes this coming weekend (November 16). The multifaceted exhibition features oil paintings, video works, and sculptures made of various materials such as clay and aluminum, alongside their negatives: casting molds reminiscent of a sarcophagus (coffin). These molds are painted from the inside, their depth creating an illusion as if the figures follow the audience with their eyes—a sort of "Mona Lisa effect." The exhibition serves as a liminal space, a meeting point between death and life, two-dimensionality and three-dimensionality, and the blooming and the withered.
Now 80, Raucher remains a vigorous and active creator, constantly working and innovating. The current exhibition is a rare event for her, marking her first show in about a decade; even before then, her appearances were sparse. For decades, her work was not embraced in Israel. However, over the last twenty years, the local art world has begun to revisit her groundbreaking practice—both in terms of its subject matter, which tackled femininity, feminism, and ageism, and its early adoption of realistic painting. It was the academic world that granted her a professional renaissance, analyzing her body of work alongside the "cold shoulder" she received from the art establishment, ultimately crystallizing her profound importance.
Today, at the start of her ninth decade, she is a highly esteemed artist. Scholarly texts are written about her, universities wax poetic about her contributions, and she is a regular nominee and recipient of prestigious awards. But until this academic momentum built up, Raucher’s experience in the art world was the polar opposite. Put simply, no one considered her relevant. "As far as the art world was concerned," she says, "I have been old and irrelevant since the age of 50."
Raucher began her journey in the art world at the age of 27, and even then, she refused to conform to the dictates of the Israeli art scene. A young mother of two, she enrolled in art studies at the Avni Institute during the years when the Israeli art world was dominated by the "Want of Matter" movement (Dalut HaChomer) and Raffi Lavie, who were firmly established at "The Midrasha" School of Art. "Those who studied at Avni were dismissed as the 'aunties'," she recalls, quoting one of the witty—yet biting—maxims common at The Midrasha back then: "Atmospheric painting is bad air" (a play on words in Hebrew).
Later, she pursued a Master’s degree at the prestigious Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, embarking on a six-year adventure abroad. "I brought my portfolio with me—the same one that was so undervalued in Israel—and traveled to the U.S. with all that baggage and frustration. And then I arrive there, and this renowned institution accepts me, grants me a scholarship, and suddenly, they appreciate what I do. For me, it was a massive boost. I wasn't an 'auntie' after all! I was still young, only 37 back then. It gave me a tremendous amount of self-confidence."
Remarkably, the decades during which the art world ignored her work at best, and denounced it at worst, have not left Raucher with bitterness or anger. Just as importantly, she never allowed it to stop her from creating. "In the studio, there are no creative blocks, thank God—not to this day. I evolve more because I am not beholden to anyone."
Raucher returned to Israel in 1983 and began teaching at the Avni Institute, where she had once been a student. About two years later, she hired Israel Hershberg—an Israeli-American artist and a new immigrant at the time. Hershberg started teaching at the Institute before establishing his Jerusalem Studio School, which would eventually become legendary in the history of Israeli art. In his first classes at the Avni Institute, he captivated young artists, inspiring a revival of realistic and figurative painting in Israel. Prior to this, Raucher had specialized primarily in conceptual art. At the time, realistic painting was not taught in Israel, and even she, despite teaching drawing and painting, had not yet mastered the technique.
The young lecturer deeply influenced Raucher, whose style shifted toward realism. "When Hershberg started teaching, I observed from the sidelines. I watched what he taught the students and learned as well. But, my realistic painting is conceptual," she is careful to clarify. "There are figures I paint from observation, in the realistic tradition, but the space—everything surrounding them—is not realistic."
Over the years, this sentiment was shaped by Hershberg and his students, including Aram Gershuni and Roni Taharlev. "Realistic painting started to become fashionable in the early '90s. I thought, 'Maybe now, with this interest in realism, will be my moment,'" Raucher recalls. "I remember trying to find a place to exhibit these works, but it didn't work because everyone was looking for 'Young Realistic Painting!'" she laughs. "Now, I wasn't even 50 yet! But I wasn't Hershberg’s student, and I didn't paint exactly 'by the rules.' Once again, I experienced a total block—not because of the quality of my painting, but because of my age. As far as the art world in Israel was concerned, I have been old since the age of 50."
"50 is the new 30, and 80 is the new 60."
Over the years, Raucher’s work became increasingly social in nature—a shift that arguably didn't make it any easier for the public or the art establishment to digest. She explored femininity and the aging body in a way that few in Israel had dared to touch. In the early 1990s, coinciding with the wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union, she exhibited the installation "Testimony" at the Arsuf Gallery in Rishpon. The installation featured nine monumental paintings, each over two meters high, depicting women who had emigrated from the USSR in their forties and fifties ("my age at the time").
Raucher, who immigrated with her family from Bulgaria to the Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa, recognized her own family in these women—the transition between countries, the sense of displacement. "I exhibited it in a gallery outside of Tel Aviv. It featured frontal, blunt nudity, presenting the women as icons. The exhibition caused quite a stir. The Vesti newspaper sent their art critic, Professor Grigory Ostrovsky, who loved the show, but the paper's editorial board did not. They thought I was looking down on the Russian Aliyah—that I was the 'veteran' presenting them in a demeaning way."
"The critic wrote a wonderful piece, but they refused to publish it. Instead, they sent a reporter to interview me and later published a six-page weekend feature, all about me, in Russian. I didn't understand a word, so I asked my dear friend, the artist and writer Miriam Gamburd, who is a Russian speaker, what they had written. She told me: 'Three pages cover exactly what you told them—your side, your identification with these women, and how they remind you of your mother. That part is fine. The other three pages? It's better you don't know.' So, to this day, I still don't know."
"Seriously? Weren’t you curious?"
"What’s the worst that could happen? They trashed me," she says. "And go try and explain to them that, for me, these women are beautiful—that there is no insult intended. But I think it was the first time in Israel that someone painted the nudity of older women in a way that truly broke out. These were also very large paintings; they made a lot of noise, and those images stayed with people."
Ostrovsky’s article was eventually published in the art monthly 4x5 (which has since folded), followed later by an article by Professor Avishai Ayal, who referred to these figures as "Secular Jewish Icons." They saw her work as a testament to immigration and the way one generation echoes through another—mothers merging into a single, universal immigrant mother. Today, these articles are widely cited. "Much has been written about these works; even students study them now," Raucher notes.
In 2005, Raucher approached the Tel Aviv Artists' House and suggested exhibiting works on an empty exterior wall. This led to the creation of "Calendar Girls and Sharmuta Poems": a massive installation of digital prints featuring unsettling, partially nude female figures. The work incorporated "Sharmuta Poems" by the award-winning feminist poet Hava Pinhas-Cohen, who reclaimed the derogatory term to explore diverse cultures and perspectives. "The women depicted were about 50 years old. Today, 50 is the new 30, and 80 is the new 60—but it wasn't like that back then. In my time, 40 was considered old."
"In short, that work got noticed. Galia Yahav (the legendary late art critic for Haaretz) published a piece on it. And then, the Tel Aviv Municipality decided to take it down. Why? A neighbor from the building opposite said: 'These women are disgusting; I can't open my window and look at them.' These are exactly the themes I’ve dealt with in my work all these years: ageism and images that are 'unattractive'—quotes intended—meaning they don't align with the ideal of beauty. And this is something that secular society, I say this with great regret, still finds difficult to accept to this day. There is still a culture of worshipping external beauty within a very specific model."
During those years, as her work was being removed from the public sphere, the academic establishment began taking its first steps toward recognizing her contribution. She started hearing that her works were being studied and that students were debating her art. She credits much of this turnaround to the internet. "I’ve gone through many phases in my life; we are a generation that has experienced so much. We arrived in Israel when there was nothing, and the metamorphosis we underwent—living in a place that is constantly changing—is incredible. The place grows, and you can no longer recognize it; every decade is entirely different. I belong to a generation that wasn't digital yet, and suddenly this transition—from living in a society where we didn't even have a telephone or a refrigerator, to today’s life where you're already dealing with Artificial Intelligence. And I do it; I love it," Raucher declares.
"Many of my friends couldn't make the transition; they got stuck in the previous century. It’s truly like the Industrial Revolution, and we were right there on the seam. I love technology, and I even think it saved me. One of the beautiful things about the internet is that it’s a space that breaks hierarchies. In the non-digital world I lived in, there were very clear hierarchies—who was more important and who was less. That structure was totally shattered, and I loved it. That is what brought me out; that is what allowed people to discover my work. Very early on, I uploaded images to the web, even though I hardly exhibited—because I didn't have the opportunity to. The art world is a world of circles, and there are very few in Israel, all with their own gatekeepers. I was outside those circles. The only way to break through was to put my work online. It gave me a presence."
"I learned to befriend death; there is nothing to fear."
Raucher’s current exhibition explores old age, death, and the way it is intertwined with life. About five years ago, she suffered a severe cardiac event. "I was in total heart failure; my lungs were filling with water, and I was in critical condition. My daughter had already called my son to fly in from the United States. I experienced a true encounter with death," she describes. "It wasn't a difficult experience; in fact, it was quite pleasant. I was in such a quiet, calm state, watching everyone around me looking at me with worried eyes. I felt that the end was near. I expected to see a light at the end of a tunnel or hear voices, but I didn't. Instead, I saw a sort of grainy TV screen, like a block—meaning I couldn't cross over yet, that my time hadn't come. But the overall feeling was pleasant. I was in a state of peace and acceptance, and nothing hurt. I wasn't afraid. I learned to befriend death; there is nothing to fear."
Following that experience, she immersed herself in the writings of Seneca, the Roman philosopher who explored the questions of how to live and how to die. Inspired by his work, she created the piece in the exhibition titled "The Death of Seneca," in which she painted her partner—who also appears in the sculptures featured in the show. "People have told me that while male artists used to paint their wives, I paint my partner; perhaps that is also a feminist statement," she reflects.
"We live alongside death here all the time, but we also learn to talk about it. We are born, and we must realize that we will die eventually. It’s going to happen, so why fear it? One who understands that their fate is already sealed and that this is where we are headed, will manage their life with greater tranquility. What Seneca recommends for a good life is to master your emotions—especially anger and anxiety. This resonated with me because I felt that near-death experience in such a positive way. I am 80; how much time is left? Most of my life is behind me. As for the future—you never know, it could happen any day. So you have the present, you live in the present, and that’s fine."
"In the meantime, my partner suffered a stroke this year. He is okay, perhaps even in a better state than before—because he lost part of his memory and is now stuck in the period he loved most in his life. He is content and happy. He isn't addicted to screens anymore because he simply forgot how to operate them, so he spends all his time looking at nature; he’s become very poetic. He tells me: 'Hava, look at the birds!' When did he ever say things like that to me? There is something incredibly touching about it. So, that’s it."
"When people expressed shock at my sculptures, I maintained that reality is far more shocking."
The connection between Chava Raucher and Dr. Zivi Berman—the exhibition's curator and Chair of the Board of the Association for Women’s Art and Gender Research in Israel—began when Berman presented Raucher with the Becky Dekel Award for Outstanding Woman Artist. "Chava’s work is something that cannot be ignored. It must not be ignored," says Berman. "She is a courageous artist, consistent in her artistic path, whose sharpness and expression only grow more refined as the years pass. I didn't know her personally, but I certainly knew and respected her work. I had the privilege of awarding her the prize, and that’s how our personal connection was formed. When she told me she planned to hold a major exhibition at the Artists' House, I was thrilled for her, and she invited me to curate it. In recent years, I’ve been very selective about the exhibitions I curate. For me, curating is activism; I see my curatorial work, my research, and my activities within the Association as all falling under the umbrella of social activism."
This year, as happened to many in Israel, Berman found herself contributing to society in a way she hadn’t planned—through military reserve duty. She spent 60 days serving as the spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) within the Ministry of Defense. "October 7th caught everyone in shock. But I don’t usually freeze; when something happens, I’m the kind of person who stays highly functional and focused. On October 7th, it was clear to me that if I was needed, I was going. This horror wasn't something I could just sit at home and reflect upon; I had to do something about it, in any way and place where I could contribute." By the following day, Berman was mobilized as the NEMA spokesperson, a role that also brought her to the Shura military base.
Reality demands that we connect with it and act within it, rather than merely experiencing it as some distant fate—this is central to my worldview. What I see and showcase in Chava’s exhibition echoes what I witnessed during my military service in Operation 'Iron Swords'—the severed, broken, and mangled bodies that arrived at Shura. Perhaps I developed a certain numbness, because when people expressed shock at Chava's sculptures, I maintained that reality is far more shocking. I’ve likely seen a bit more than most. Had I curated a similar exhibition with these themes before the war, I might have been much more shaken, or hesitated to place works of such bluntness in a gallery space. But after October 7th, something broke open; reality became crueler than anything we could have ever imagined."
"Israeli art today is more activist than ever, and I am incredibly proud of that. Because even if we were left shocked and speechless by these terrible events, ultimately, they brought out people's activism, their compassion, and their will to change—the desire to try and do a little good in the midst of all this evil. So, that’s it."