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Behind the scenes - Shamir Studio
Yesterday, an ad by the Shamir brothers "Haaretz covers the country" from 1957 caught my eye on Ofer Aderet's Facebook page "Revenge of the Archive".
I noticed that your site does not mention at all (I could not find anyway) those who worked in the studio over the years with Gabriel and Max. I guess it's a little difficult to find those people after such a long time, but I thought it might add to the “espirit de corps”.I worked in the studio as an apprentice from November 1972 to the end of May 1973. Just after I was released from my full military service in IDF's Combat Engineering Corps. As I rummage through my memory I remember the apartment being divided into a living room, hallway and several rooms. I was sitting in the living room at a desk next to Marion Shore. There were more people in the room, if I'm not mistaken a girl named Dvorah and Mussia
Maxim's wife, who managed the accounts, telephones, and so on. Gabriel was sitting in one of the rooms at the end of the hallway and Max was sitting in a room next to the living room.
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I was referred to the Shamir brothers by my high school teacher, Yaakov Zim. Marion, a "proud Pole," was my mentor throughout the time I was there. Most of my work in the studio was finishing the designs of labels for the sweetened juice bottles of "Assis" and labels for jams, preserves, and so on. Everything was created by hand. Marion taught me how to apply colour transitions, the lighting, the shadows and the entire required technique.
Gabriel was in his room most of the time, there were endless sketches and works on his desk. From time to time he asked us to help him with the creation of various sketches, all with brushes, Reissfeder , Rapidographs, etc. (who then thought of computers - Photoshop…).
Max was mostly in the other room, busy most of the time designing and producing stamps. Mussia "skipped" between them and talked a lot with the customers on the phone and in the studio. Once in a while Gabriel would walk into Max's room or vica versa - making comments, consulting, argueing - there was always a good and pleasant atmosphere, and I really enjoyed working there.
There were a few times, quite rarely, that I was given "design" assignments - under the close supervision of Gabriel and Marion. One of them was packaged for Geller's anchovy spread. Something in yellow with a red mesh, I believe that this spread was sold for many years in this tube and I was very proud to have had a tiny part in designing this work.
Yair Lindenberg November 2020