(No Dust Jacket. No date found. Text in English and Hebrew...)
No Dust Jacket. No date found. Text in English and Hebrew, with numerous illustrations by Szyk. Bound in decorative and jeweled silver metal boards with jade stones. Doest NOT have gold decoration. In publisher's illustrated card box that is soiled and a little crushed. The endpapers on the book are 'crinkled,' from the metal on the boards.
(This collection of classic fairy tales by Hans Christian ...)
This collection of classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, illustrated by internationally acclaimed artist Lisbeth Zwerger, has been expanded -- three stories added -- and completely redesigned.
(This is a beautiful version of the Book of Ruth, King Jam...)
This is a beautiful version of the Book of Ruth, King James translation, illustrated with full-page color illustrations. This is a very impressive and rare version of this book of the Bible. Comes in a gold slipcase.
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Arthur Szyk (pronounced “Shick”) created his magnific...)
Arthur Szyk (pronounced “Shick”) created his magnificent Haggadah in Lodz, on the eve of the Nazi occupation of his native Poland. There is no Haggadah like it, before or since, filled with sumptuous paintings of Jewish heroes and stunning calligraphy.
This edition, the first since 1940 to be reproduced from Szyk’s original art, boasts a newly commissioned and extremely practical English text by Rabbi Byron L. Sherwin, ideal for use at any family Seder, and a special commentary section by Rabbi Sherwin and Irvin Ungar gives insight into both the rituals of the Seder and Szyk’s rich illustrations.
Available in both hardcover and paperback editions, The Szyk Haggadah will transform the Seder, bringing the story of the Exodus from Egypt into a more contemporary light.
Praise for The Szyk Haggadah:
"Szyk's Haggadah is still fabulous and fresh."
-Hadassah Magazine
(Though known for his caricatures of World War II villains...)
Though known for his caricatures of World War II villains, the illustrator was also the leading revivalist of the medieval tradition of illumination. This book highlights Szyk's best work, from his illuminations of historic documents to greeting card illustrations, stamps, and magazine covers.
Arthur Szyk was a Polish-Jewish artist who worked primarily as a book illustrator and political artist throughout his decades-long career. His is noted for his political caricatures that gained most success in the United States.
Background
Arthur Szyk, the son of the son of Alexander Solomon and Eugenia Rogatzki (or Rogacka) Szyk, was born on June 16, 1894 in Lódź, in Russian-occupied Poland. Solomon Szyk was a textile factory director, a quiet occupation until June 1905, when, during the so-called Lódź insurrection, one of his workers threw acid in his face, permanently blinding him.
Education
Arthur Szyk was pressed to attend business college, which he did, although briefly. By the time he was fifteen, he had persuaded his father to allow him to go to Paris to study art. He entered the Academie Julien, where he studied under Bachet and Royer. After two years, he left the school to pursue a career as a book illustrator.
Career
Having decided to work in the manner of a medieval illuminator, Arthur Szyk returned from Paris, France to Cracow, Poland, to serve an apprenticeship with Axentovich, a master of this nearly lost art.
In 1914 he traveled in the Near East to study and learn from first-hand observation of Turkish and Persian miniature paintings. During World War I Szyk saw action with the Russian army and was taken prisoner, but was then released and allowed to work under house arrest.
His major work at this time lay in illustrating the Song of Songs (1917); the Germans, "from Hindenburg down, " as Szyk recalled, acquired his work. He was put in charge of the office of propaganda by General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who became his lifelong friend. Szyk was made an officer and received a decoration for bravery.
In 1921 Szyk moved to Paris. He lived there for the next ten years, broken only by a six-week trip to Morocco in 1924 to paint a portrait-miniature of the Pasha of Marrakech, Haj Thami al-Mezuari al-Glaoui, under a commission from the French Ministry of Education. The Pasha was pleased with the painting, and Szyk was awarded the palmes academiques of the French government. His work was exhibited in Paris at the Palais de Luxembourg and bought for the collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale.
In 1931 he moved to London, where he was given an exhibition by the Royal Academy of Miniature Painters. He was further honored when King George VI accepted the dedication of his Haggadah, which was published in an edition limited to 240 copies. Szyk came to the United States in 1937, settling in New Canaan, Connecticut, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Szyk's profound involvement in the conflict heightened his expressive powers. He became an impassioned commentator on events, but never to the point of abandoning his meticulous, richly detailed style. His cartoons appeared in the Chicago Sun, the New York Post, Time, PM, Collier's, Fortune, and Life, among other periodicals.
After the war Szyk returned to book illustration, the work for which he chiefly remains known. In addition to his early Song of Songs, he illustrated the Book of Esther (1922), the Temptation of St. Anthony (1924), Jacob's Well (1924), The Laughing Jew (1925), The Statute of Kalisz (1929), The Last Days of Shylock (1931), George Washington and His Times (1931), The Epic of Simon Bolivar (1938), The Rub iy t (1939), The Haggadah (1940), The New Order (1942), Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales (1945), The Canterbury Tales (1946), Pathways Through the Bible (1946), Ink and Blood (1946), and The Arabian Nights (1952).
The Statute of Kalisz, for example, which is sometimes described as the Polish Jew's Magna Carta, was executed in an intricately detailed Gothic script and illustrated with forty-six miniatures. He made use of a different manner for Ludwig Lewisohn's novel The Last Days of Shylock, the work that made his name known in the United States; the style of the novel is Elizabethan, and Szyk's illustrations complement it in feeling.
Washington and His Times was initially painted as a series of thirty-eight miniatures commemorating the George Washington Bicentennial, done before Szyk had any direct knowledge of America; the paintings received wide acclaim, and President Ignacy Moscicki of Poland presented the originals to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had them hung in the White House.
Szyk's art was not always so favorably received. Some critics found his tinted drawings uncomfortably close to caricature, mannered in the extreme, and monotonous in their unselective detail. Szyk was nonetheless fully occupied with commissions until his death in New Canaan.
Arthur Szyk died of a heart attack in New Canaan on September 13, 1951.
Even though his family was culturally assimilated and did not practice Orthodox Judaism, Arthur also liked drawing biblical scenes from the Hebrew Bible.
Politics
Szyk joined the Polish army in the war against the Bolsheviks. During World War II he put his skills to use as a political cartoonist, attacking the Nazis at every opportunity.
Views
Most of Szyk's illustration represented his highly personal adaptation of the early manuscript illuminator's art.
Quotations:
"Father was a textile mill owner from a very ancient Jewish family of great scholars, " Szyk recalled.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
As the reviewer of The Times wrote: "There are three leading motives in the exhibition: the brutality of the Germans – and the more primitive savagery of the Russians, the heroism of the Poles, and the suffering of the Jews. The cumulative effect of the exhibition is immensely powerful because nothing in it appears to be a hasty judgment, but part of the unrelenting pursuit of an evil so firmly grasped that it can be dwelt upon with artistic satisfaction. "
Some years later, in 1946, art critic Carl Van Doren said of Szyk:
"There is no one more certain to be alive two hundred years from now. Just as we turn back to Hogarth and Goya for the living images of their age, so our descendants will turn back to Arthur Szyk for the most graphic history of Hitler and Hirohito and Mussolini. Here is the damning essence of what has happened; here is the piercing summary of what men have thought and felt. "
He was eulogized by Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, who said:
"Arthur Szyk was a great artist. Endowed by God with a rare sensitivity to beauty and with a rare skill in giving it graphic representation, he used his talents to create a series of works of splendor and magnificence that will live forever in the history of art. But Arthur Szyk was more than a great artist. He was a great man, a champion of justice, a fearless warrior in the cause of every humanitarian endeavor. His art was his tool and he used it brilliantly. It was in his hands a weapon of struggle with which he fought for the causes close to his heart"; and by Judge Simon H. Rifkind, who said: "The Arthur Szyk whom the world knows, the Arthur Szyk of the wondrous color, and of the beautiful design, that Arthur Szyk whom the world mourns today—he is indeed not dead at all. How can he be when the Arthur Szyk who is known to mankind lives and is immortal and will remain immortal as long as the love of truth and beauty prevails among mankind?"
Some years later, in 1946, art critic Carl Van Doren said of Szyk:
"There is no one more certain to be alive two hundred years from now. Just as we turn back to Hogarth and Goya for the living images of their age, so our descendants will turn back to Arthur Szyk for the most graphic history of Hitler and Hirohito and Mussolini. Here is the damning essence of what has happened; here is the piercing summary of what men have thought and felt. "
Connections
In 1916 Arthur Szyk married Julia Likerman. Their son George was born in the following year, and their daughter Alexandra in 1922.
Decorated Officer of Palms (France), Golden Merit Cross, Commander’s Cross of Polonia Restituta (Poland), George Washington Medal (United States). Illustrator: Song of Songs, 1917. Books of Esther, 1922.tempSpaceTemptation of Saint Anthony, 1924.
Jacob’s Well, 1924; Laughing Jew, 1925. Last Days of Shylock, 1926.tempSpaceStatut of Kalisz, 1929. George Washington and His Times, 1931.
Rubaiyat, 1939; Hagadah, 1941.tempSpaceNew Order, 1942. United Nation Stamps, 1945. Andersons Fairy Tales, 1945.
Canterbury Tales, 1946.tempSpacePathways Through the Bible, 1946. Ink and Blood, 1946. Designed postage stamps for Liberia, Republic of Israel, Bolivar and his contemporaries, United States Declaration of Independence. Home and studio: Weed Saint, New Canaan, Connecticut
Decorated Officer of Palms (France), Golden Merit Cross, Commander’s Cross of Polonia Restituta (Poland), George Washington Medal (United States). Illustrator: Song of Songs, 1917. Books of Esther, 1922.tempSpaceTemptation of Saint Anthony, 1924.
Jacob’s Well, 1924; Laughing Jew, 1925. Last Days of Shylock, 1926.tempSpaceStatut of Kalisz, 1929. George Washington and His Times, 1931.
Canterbury Tales, 1946.tempSpacePathways Through the Bible, 1946. Ink and Blood, 1946. Designed postage stamps for Liberia, Republic of Israel, Bolivar and his contemporaries, United States Declaration of Independence. Home and studio: Weed Saint, New Canaan, Connecticut
George Washington Bicentennial Medal (United States)