KAPLAN, Nomi
ARTWORK
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BIOGRAPHY
Nomi Kaplan was born in 1933 in Memel, Lithuania. Late in 1940, just before the Nazis marched into Lithuania, Kaplan, her parents and brother Igor fled to Kaunas. It was there that the Japanese consul, Chiune Sugihara, was issuing life-saving transit visas to Jews. This visa enabled the Kaplan family, including seven-year-old Nomi to narrowly escape the Nazis, first to Japan, and finally to a farm in Ontario, Canada, in 1940. Kaplan moved to Vancouver, BC in 1955, where she produces art today.
Kaplan studied at Wayne University, the University of British Columbia, and the Vancouver School of Art, where she earned a Diploma in painting and printmaking. Kaplan also took post-graduate courses in art, photography, film and video production at various institutions. In 1972, Kaplan helped to organize the first Women's Film Festival in Vancouver, leading to the co-founding of ReelFeelings, a collective which produced a 16 mm. film, "So Where's My Prince Already?", featured at the New York Women's Film Festival in 1973. Later, Kaplan became a member of the Video In collective. From 1991 to 1994 Kaplan taught photography at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver.
After her involvement with many types of artistic activities, Kaplan chose photography as her main form of artistic expression, and became a full-time professional artist. She has consistently exhibited her work in individual and group shows from the 1980s through the present. Nomi Kaplan has received numerous grants and awards. Her work is in collections at the Brooklyn Museum, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Washington State Arts Commission, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Canada Council Art Bank, Canadian Embassy, Israel, and the Edmonton Art Gallery, as well as private collections.
Nomi Kaplan |
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Selected Group Exhibitions |
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2012 | Marcia Rafelman Fine Arts, Toronto, ON |