Yaacov Agam was born Yaacov Gipstein in Rishon le Zion, in Israel on May 11, 1928. His father was a rabbi, a Talmudic scholar and a Kabbalist. The family was poor, and the young Agam received little regular schooling; he studied under a "melamed" in the local synagogue. He soon realized he could draw.

"I used to come home with drawings, at first afraid of my father's reactions, since drawing was not permitted on religious principles. But on one occasion my father told me a story: that when he was a student at a yeshiva, he made a drawing on a handkerchief and forgot it on his desk. He came back to look for it because he thought the rabbi would punish him for drawing a figure. But later, when he had forgott...