Many readers may not be familiar with his name, but they’ve seen his work. In a poster held aloft at a protest, a bumper sticker on a car from decades past, or an iconic Independence Day logo, David Tartakover shaped the way Israel sees itself.
The celebrated designer, artist, and educator passed away this week at the age of 81. His death marks the loss of a singular voice in Israeli culture, one who believed that design should not decorate reality, but challenge it.
Born in Haifa in 1944 and raised in Jerusalem, Tartakover served as a paratrooper during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, studied at Bezalel, and continued his training in London before returning home to open a modest studio in Tel Aviv. From there, for over 50 years, he built a body of work that doubled as social critique.
Tartakover's iconic works
One of his most iconic creations, Israel’s “Peace Now” logo, was born in 1978, repurposed from a celebratory poster for Israel’s 30th year of independence. The bold, sans-serif call for shalom became a political slogan, a sticker, a chant. It was also, in retrospect, a warning.
Tartakover once said his posters were his personal seismograph, recording the tremors of Israeli society. “I make images that may be painful to me, and painful to others,” he told an interviewer. “But I believe that is part of my responsibility as a citizen.” That quote, cited across local and international publications, reflects the deep moral undertow that ran through his work.
He designed for causes rather than clients. For families of missing soldiers. For women’s rights. For peace. For memory. Even his typography had a distinctly Israeli accent, always rooted in local language, idiom, and the tension between past and present.
Shaping visual memory
From the mid-1970s until the present, Tartakover also taught at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, where he mentored generations of designers to think not only visually, but ethically. In 2002, he was awarded the Israel Prize for design, a rare instance where establishment recognition met subversive artistry.
His works are housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, and Israel’s own Design Museum in Holon. But perhaps his truest exhibition was the street, where his posters became part of the national visual lexicon.
President Isaac Herzog called Tartakover “a man who shaped the visual memory of Israeli society.” Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, a longtime friend, described him as “a proud Tel Avivian who dared to disturb the peace, and did it with unmatched elegance.”
Tartakover is survived by his daughter Eli and grandson Michael. His family noted that even in his final years, as Parkinson’s disease gradually quieted his hand, his mind remained restless, always questioning.
To those unfamiliar with him, Tartakover may appear to have lived on the margins of culture. In truth, he defined those margins, and pulled them to the center. He believed that design should agitate, not flatter. That protest can be beautiful. And that the role of the artist is not to resolve conflict, but to make it impossible to ignore.
He didn’t ask for applause. He asked for attention. And he earned it, image by image, truth by stubborn truth.