ISBN:
5932731303
Language:
English
Pages:
343 Seiten
,
Illustrationen
Year of publication:
2003
Series Statement:
Bibliotheca Judaica
Series Statement:
Bibliotheca Judaica
Keywords:
Sterenberg, David P.
;
Falʹk, Robert R.
;
Chagall, Marc
;
Čaikov, Josif Moiseevič
;
Altmann, Nathan
;
Lisickij, Lazarʹ M.
;
Shifrin, Nisson
;
Ryback, Issachar
;
Epstejn, Mark I.
;
Aronson, Boris
;
Nikritin, Solomon B.
;
Tyšler, Aleksandr G.
;
Labas, Aleksandr
;
Russland
;
Kultur-Lige
;
Künstler
;
Malerei
;
Grafik
;
Plastik
;
Künstlervereinigung
Abstract:
The Kultur-Lige was a Jewish cultural organization established in 1918 in Kiev with a goal to produce the modern Yiddish culture, which was at the same time national and universal. Later the organization spread to Moscow, Kaunas, Czernowitz, Warsaw etc. This book is devoted to the Jewish artists who belonged to the Arts Section of this league, amongst whom are the world-famous Jewish painters Marc Chagall, Nathan Altman and El Lissitzky. Created in the 1918 - early 1920s, modern Jewish art combined traditional Jewish folklore motifs with the most avant-garde concepts of the contemporary art of the day. The book is accompanied by 213 reproductions of the works of the artists associated with the Kultur-Lige: David Shterenberg, Abram Manevich, Robert Falk, Marc Chagall, Joseph Tchaikov, Nathan Altman, El Lissitzky, Nisson Shifrin, Isaak Rabinovich, Isaak Rabichev, Issachar Ber Ryback, Lev Halperin, Sarah Shor, Pauline Khentova, Mark Epstein, Boris Aronson, Solomon Nikritin, Alexander Tyshler, Iosif Elman, Mark Sheikhel, Alexander Labas, Zfania-Gedali Kipnis, Khaim Mastbaum, Shulim Kotkis, Hersh Inger.
Abstract:
For those who are interested in modern Yiddish culture at a crucial juncture in its development - the years immediately following the First World War - this is a most important new book. Its focus is on the Arts Section of the Kultur-Lige, an organization that was founded in Kiev in January 1918 "with the objective of promoting Yiddish culture." Kazovsky, the author of an earlier study, Artists from Vitebsk: Yehuda Pen and His Pupils (Moskva: Imidzh, [ca. 1991]), writes in his introduction, "This book is only an interim 'archaeological' report about the history of the Kultur-Lige and its Arts Section." Nevertheless, he has uncovered a lot of previously undiscovered material (both artworks and documentation) in archives, museums, and private collections in the former Soviet Union, Western Europe, and Israel, and that alone makes this a valuable contribution to the growing literature on Jewish participation in the artistic avant-garde. The focus of Kazovsky's study is the Kultur-Lige in Kiev, even though (as he notes) the organization had important branches in Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Romania, and (especially) Poland. A number of the Kultur-Liga artists whom he discusses are well-known: Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, Issachar-Ber Ryback, Boris Aronson, Natan Altman, Joseph Tchaikov. Other names are less familiar at first glance -- e.g., Sarah Shor, Mark Epstein, Iosif Elman. But those who have perused Yiddish children's books or examined Yiddish magazines from that period (such as Freyd) will recognize their handiwork. Quite a few of the reproductions come from books and magazines, demonstrating the close collaboration between writers and visual artists associated with the Kultur-Lige. And, as Kazovsky points out, these artists' output was a synthesis of folk art and traditional Jewish symbols, with such modernist approaches as expressionism and cubism. This was the new Jewish art, par excellence. The Artists of the Kultur-Lige includes an extensive introduction, providing background on both the Kultur-Lige and its Arts Section. The book is completely bilingual - English and Russian - and the publishers are to be thanked for that. Editorial and proofreading standards are more consistently applied in the introduction than in the section where most of the illustrations appear. (E.g., David Hofstein [Dovid Hofshteyn] becomes Gofstein [in English] - even though the book accompanying this caption shows clearly the Yiddish spelling Hofshteyn.) Still, all things considered, this is a very minor drawback. Zachary Baker.
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