Preview: Jewish Artists, Jewish Identity

Issachar Ber Ryback (1897–1935)
Study for book cover by Leyb Kvitko (author): Foyglen (Birds)
Berlin: “Schwellen” (Farlag shveln), c. 1922
Tempera and gouache on paper, 14 3/8 x 11” (30 x 39 cm)

Today we share a selection of works that will appear in Alla Rosenfeld’s forthcoming book Jewish Artists, Jewish Identity 1917–1931: Works from the Merrill C. Berman Collection. This publication features some sixty works (paintings, drawings, prints, and books) by artists affiliated with the Young Yiddish, Kultur-Lige, and other groups. It includes a major essay by Rosenfeld, titled “Interwar Jewish Artists in Russia and East-Central Europe in a Quest of Secular Modernity and Jewish Traditions,” along with artist biographies and a substantive bibliography. Slated to appear later this summer, we will announce its publication by e-mail.

Jankel Adler (1895–1949)
Bärtige Jude mit Mutze (Bearded jew with hat), c. 1926 (possibly printed later)
Drypoint, 21 x 16 1/4” (53.3 x 41.3 cm)

Left: Mark Epshtein (1899–1949)
Cover and table of contents of the journal (in Yiddish): Freyd: Zhurnal far kinder (Joy: Journal for children), no. 1 (Kiev: Kultur-lige, November 1922)
Lithograph, 10 7/8 x 8 1/2” (27.6 x 21.6 cm)
Right: Henryk Berlewi (1894–1967)
Cover of the book (in Hebrew):
Gabriel Talpir (author), Ligyon, Poeyma (Legion, Long Poem)
Warsaw: Peratsim, 1925
Lithograph, 10 7/8 x 8 3/8” (27.6 x 21.3 cm), closed

El Lissitzky (1890–1941)
Book cover and spread (in Russian): Ilya Ehrenburg (author),
Shest’ povestei o legkikh kontsakh (Six stories with easy endings)
Moscow-Berlin: Helikon, August 1922
Letterpress, 7 7/8 x 5 1/8” (20 x 13 cm)

Bentzion Mikhtom (1908–1941)
Emblem (in Yiddish) for the Yung-Vilne (Young Vilnius) Group, 1930s
Woodcut, 11 3/8 x 9” (29 x 23 cm)

Issachar Ber Ryback (1897–1935)
Der Schullehrer (The schoolteacher), c. 1916–1917
Conté crayon on paper, 24 1/8 x 18” (61.2 x 45.7 cm)
Note: This image drawing was reproduced as plate 4 of Ryback’s portfolio, Jüdische Typen aus der Ukraine: Zwölf Originallithographien (Jewish Types of Ukraine: Twelve Lithographs). Text by Max Osborn. Berlin: Verlag Essem, 1924.

Jankel Adler (1895–1949)
Untitled (Old woman in the shtetel), 1925
Oil on board, 16 1/2 x 12.4” (42 x 31.5 cm)

Solomon Yudovin (1892–1954)
Slukhi o pogrome (Rumors about the pogrom),
from the series Byloe (Bygone days), 1928
Wood engraving, 6 1/4 x 4 7/8” (16 x 12 cm)

Lev Smekhov (1908–1978)
Poster (in Yiddish): Di alte shul hot aroysgearbet knekht. Di ratn-shul greyt: gezunte, arbets-feike mentshn boyer fun der sotsyalistisher ordenung
(The old school produced slaves. The Soviet school prepares: healthy, competent-working people, builders of Socialism), 1920
Lithograph, dimensions tbd.

July 5, 2023