In the early 80s I recruited my father, Gabriel Shamir, to do some pro bono work for the University of Tel Aviv, which was in financial difficulties at the time. One of the first works was a poster of a landscape of the campus intended to be used as a gift to donors. Shamir created from his imagination a composition of seven buildings rather than depict their actual physical location on campus. He added a kind of amphitheatre and spiced it up with palm trees. The poster was drawn with charcoal on brown paper  using white paint for bright areas.

 

The original painting of the poster has vanished. The person responsible for organising the printing of the poster at the Supplies Department said that he returned it to the Public Affairs Division, and the responsible person in that department swore that she never received the original. By the time Shamir passed away, the original was still missing. A few years later they started a complete redecoration of the Division offices: Before plastering the walls they moved all the furniture including a metal cabinet in the Photography section. Behind it they discovered the original. When I retired from the university with 2004 I asked my boss Yehiel Ben - Zvi, if I could take the painting home.and he agreed willingly.

 

Other versions of the poster were also printed, designed by Gili Bal Friedman  of  Public Affairs. All of them – used the Shamir's painting as background in  faded colours over which appeared the title and text.

 

For the university's sports centre, Gabriel Shamir designed a poster for the International Students' Sport Week. In the centre of the poster he painted  a basketball with an academic cap with gold tassel. The background consisted of six shades of blue. I saw the original painting several times a year when I attended meetings at the centre. It was hanging among a collection of printed posters. After the death of Shamir I proposed to Aryeh Rosenzweig, director of the centre, an exchange deal: He'll get a framed print of the poster and in return he would give me the original. Although he knew that the transaction made no economic sense, he agreed as a tribute to Shamir's memory. The Centre used the main element - the ball with the academic hat without requesting permission for minting medals for outstanding athletes. I learned about this some years later, and I decided not to make a scene.

 

In 1989 Prof. Yaffa Kedar organized an International Conference for Breast Cancer Research. After being asked to design a poster for the conference, Shamir pondered for days how to give visual representation to the subject of the conference. Clinical photographs were rejected by him outright. Use of pictures of healthy breasts seemed inappropriate for a public institution. He recalled that depicting the female nude in art received approval even under the church, providing that it was in the context of a mythological or historical event, but not an erotic context. Shamir spent many hours in his home going through art books until he found a glorious beautiful and kosher breast – the "Night" sculpture by Michelangelo placed on the Tomb of Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence. Yaffa Kedar was very pleased with the idea and ordered a 2.5 meters high photo of the statue which was placed on the stage of the conference.

After the conference the photograph was moved to Yossi Bronze's workshop, who was responsible for the signs of the university. He placed it  behind his executive chair until he retired - and his yarmulke-wearing replacement arrived.