Apollo was born Barbara Christina in Germany. When she was three years old, her mother gave her up for adoption and she was handed over to a childless couple from Poland – Moshe and Shoshana Apollo. The Apollo family immigrated to Israel in 1950, and Barbara’s name was changed to Batia. From an early age, she demonstrated artistic talent. She studied art and textile design at the WIZO France High School, and subsequently at the Avni Institute of Art, Tel Aviv. At the age of nineteen, she met Dahn Ben-Amotz (1924–1989) – a controversial writer and screenwriter, actor and publicist, who was one of the leading figures of the bohemian community in Israel. In 1966, the two started living together, and a year later their only daughter, Naomi, was born. From 1965 to 1971, Apollo exhibited her paintings in four of the Ten Plus group exhibitions. In 1971, after separating from Ben-Amotz, she moved to the Netherlands for a year, where she studied animation. After returning to Israel, she chose to stay away from the cultural center and settled in north of the country. In her final years, she lived in the small community of Amuka in the Galilee. She passed away at the age of 72, leaving a daughter, three grandchildren, and a group of loyal friends who cherish her memory.
Apollo’s paintings have a figurative line of a rare quality. They hint at a closed world of inner fantasy – a world of symbolistic attributes, blending literature with mental visions and brimming with cryptic fictional images of a mythical, haunted, dark, and turbulent nature. Apollo used to paint on a small, at times miniature, scale, with very fine brushes and a meticulous line, with great emphasis on depictions of textures and details. She experimented a great deal with ancient techniques, such as tempera on wood, oils, encaustic painting (with hot wax), graphite pencils, and so on. The references she used to incorporate into her works – from art history, decorative art, and old photographs – highlight her need to work within a historical context to ensure her artistic actions, and perhaps even her very identity as an artist, are firmly rooted. Her diminutive paintings require special attention. The close scrutiny of the works invokes a certain intimacy, but this is constrained by the enigmatic nature of the paintings and the difficulty in discerning all the details of the images.
Apollo always painted sporadically, and only after internal struggles and profound mental difficulty. She labored for a long time on each and every painting, and found it hard to complete works, due to her proclivity to self-criticism and perfectionist demands. She often destroyed her paintings, and those that remained she treated like sacred objects, protecting them and keeping them carefully swaddled. This treatment contributed to the mythical aura surrounding her works, effectively making them extremely rare. The original purchasers of her paintings, who were usually from among her circle of close acquaintances, have jealously guarded them over the years. Unfortunately, many of the owners of the paintings find it so difficult to part from them that they have refused to lend them for display in this exhibition. This is the first solo show devoted to her work.
All photographs are by Yakov Agor, courtesy of Haaretz archive
Works are from the Gaby and Ami Brown Collection, unless otherwise indicated.
We extend our deep gratitude to all the lenders to the exhibition, for their generous support in making works available to us
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