TEL AVIV.- The Tel Aviv Museum of Art announced the passing away of Director and Chief Curator of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on Friday morning, 10 June 2011, after a brave battle against cancer.

Museum workers will sorely miss his leadership, his vision and guidance. He was a constant inspiration to all who had the fortune to know him.

Professor Mordechai Omer served since January 1995 as the Director and Chief Curator of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. He simultaneously served as Professor of Art History at Tel Aviv University (a post he has held since 1986) and as the head of the University’s Museum Studies Program.

A native of Haifa, Professor Mordechai Omer was educated at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (B.A. in art history, 1961), Columbia University, New York (M.A. in art history, 1968) and the University of East Anglia, Norwich (Ph.D., 1976). He began his museum career in 1964 as the founding director of the Education Department of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, then went on to serve as the assistant to the Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1967-71) and guest curator for traveling exhibitions and the Prints Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1976). He joined the faculty of Tel Aviv University in 1976 as a senior lecturer in the Art History department and has been the curator of the Tel Aviv University Art Gallery since 1977.

In addition to curating dozens of exhibitions and writing countless publications for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Professor Mordechai Omer was guest curator for the Saõ Paulo Biennial (1987 and 1989) and the Commissioner of the Israel Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2003). At various times he has also been a guest curator at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the Jerusalem City Museum; the University of Haifa Art Gallery; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Museum of Modern Art, Haifa; the Museum of Art, Ein-Harod; Expo 92 in Seville; and the Bruni Gallery, University of London.

Professor Mordechai Omer envisioned and realized the Herta and Paul Amir Building of the Museum to be inaugurated this year in October 2011, which will, among other activities and exhibition, serve as a permanent home to the chronological history of Israel art.

Professor Mordechai Omer was one of the most important theoreticians of the history of Israeli art and left behind a legacy of extensive scholarship in the field and raised generations of art historians and young curators.

Professor Mordechai Omer contributed immeasurably to the Museum, as well as to the artistic and cultural life in Israel, and the museum is immensely grateful for his leadership, friendship and guidance.

A memorial ceremony will be held on the 11th July at 20:00 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, in the Recanati Auditorium