1957 Judaica FACSIMILE EDITION Yiddish LISSITZKY Russian 1917 JEWISH AVANT GARDE

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Seller: judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,805) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 276372860762 1957 Judaica FACSIMILE EDITION Yiddish LISSITZKY Russian 1917 JEWISH AVANT GARDE. DESCRIPTION : Up for auction is a VERY RARE publication. It's a LIMITED Facsimile edition of the YIDDISH publication of two of the leading figures in modern YIDDISH LITERATURE and AVANT GARDE ART , Both from Russian origin , The LEGENDARY renaissance artist EL LISSITZKY ( Russian :  Эль Лиси́цкий ,  Yiddish :  על ליסיצקי   Russian :  Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий   )  , And the YIDDISH writer and poet  MOYSHE BRODERZON . The most important YIDDISH RUSSIAN AVANT GARDE PIECE  "Sikhes khulin" ( Also known as Мирская беседа  ,  איינע פון די געשיכטען,    ) was originaly published in 1917 in Soviet Russia. This facsimile edition was published in a very limited edition in 1957 in Tel Aviv Israel to commemorate a year to the death of  MOYSHE BRODERZON , And since than has became a SOUGHT AFTER COLLECTIBLE item by itself. Please read what others have written about this exceptional piece :   "   El Lissitzky’s first important work appeared in 1917, in the form of illustrations for  Moyshe Broderzon ’s  Sikhes khulin  (Profane Idle Chatter), a whimsical Yiddish erotic poem. Conceiving of each page as an integrated whole, El Lissitzky surrounded classic double columns of Hebrew script with stroke-based figures derived from the ornamental style of Jewish folk art. Although each leaf is different, the illustration complements the text, hastening or retarding the narrative as needed. He also added pools of saturated color over black strokes. The text was rolled like a scroll and boxed like a mezuzah. This work represents the first modern Jewish art book, fusing Hebrew scribal tradition with modernist stylized archaizing figure and line.  In 1917, after the tsarist regime fell, he published the epic poem  Sikhes khulin  (Idle Chatter), which El Lissitzky illustrated. The work was a radical, modernist adaptation of  Mayse yerushalmi,  a major piece from old  Yiddish literature  dating from the sixteenth century. The edition is now considered a key representation of avant-garde Jewish art.  "  This extremely RARE and SOUGHT AFTER 1957 facsimile edition is a treasure of Jewish - Yiddish culture, literature and art. Original illustrated wrappers. Bound by thread as issued. 12" x 9.5" . Oblong.  18 unpaged pp of extremely heavy stock. Very good used condition. No creases . No tears. A few of the pages are very slightly stained only at far margins. Cover and front page slightly worn and stained. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images )  Book will be sent inside a protective packaging . VERY IMPORTANT REMARK : A similar facsimile copy is being offered on line for the price of $1200. PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal & All credit cards. SHIPPMENT : SHIPP worldwide via registered airmail is $ 25 . Book will be sent inside a protective packaging . Will be sent around 5-10 days after payment .  Хураангуйг харуулах  Товч агуулга יונה, אַ ייד פון פראָג, פאַרברענגט זיינע טעג אין לערנען, אָבער ער קען נישט אויסצוהאַלטן זיין משפחה. ער פאָרט אַוועק צו פאַרדינען געלט און סוף־כל־סוף קומט אין אַ פאַלאַץַ ווו ס׳וווינט אַ פרינצעסין, אַ טאָכטער פון שטן אשמדאי. זי דערקלערט אים אַז ער איז אין א סכנה אין דעם לאַנד פון שטן און כדי נישט ליידן מוז ער חתונה האָבן מיט דער פרינצעסין. ער האָט חתונה מיט איר. אין דריי וואָכן אַרום זעט ער אַ חלום, אַז ער ווערט ווידער אַ גוטער ייד מיט זיין ערשטער פרוי און קינדער. יונה וויל צוריקפאָרן קיין פראָג. די פרינצעסין לאָזט אים אָפ, אָבער נאָר אויף אַ קורצער צייט. יונה קומט צוריק און פאַרגעסט וועגן זיין צוזאָג. ער וויל נישט צוריק צו דער פרינצעסין. זי איז מסכים זיך גטן מיט אים, אָבער זי וויל אים געבן דאָס לעצטע מאָל א קוש. נאָך איר קוש פאַלט יונה אַ טויטער.   Хэвлэгдсэн огноо  [196?]   Хэлнүүд  יידיש   Номыг хандивлагч  יידישער וויסנשאַפטלעכער אינסטיטוט ייוואָ - פאַרייניקטע שטאַטן   Хэвлэн нийтлэгч  Энэхүү бүтээл нь зохиогчийн эрхийн хугацаа дуусч, оюуны өмчийн нээлттэй бүтээл болсон болно. Тэмдэглэл  יידישע קינדערביכלעך פון דער קאָלעקציע פון דער ייוואָ־ביבליאָטעק שיחת חולין איינע פון די געשיכטען Зохиогч - משה בראָדערזאָן Номын зураач - אליעזר ליסיצקי Энэ номыг унших Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (Russian: Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий,  listen (help·info); November 23 [O.S. November 11] 1890 – December 30, 1941), known as El Lissitzky (Russian: Эль Лиси́цкий, Yiddish: על ליסיצקי‎), was a Russianartist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design.[1] Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation).[2] Lissitzky, of Lithuanian Jewish оrigin, began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia. When only 15 he started teaching, a duty he would maintain for most of his life. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. This continued until his deathbed, where in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany. In 2014, the heirs of the artist, in collaboration with Van abbemuseum and the leading worldwide scholars, the Lissitzky foundation was established, to preserve the artist's legacy and preparing a catalogue raisonné of the artist oeuvre. Contents  [hide]  1 Early years 2 Avant-garde 2.1 Suprematism 2.2 Proun 2.3 Return to Germany 2.4 Horizontal skyscrapers 3 Exhibitions of the 1920s 4 Later years 5 Gallery of work 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links Early years[edit] Lissitzky was born on November 23, 1890 in Pochinok, a small Jewish community 50 kilometres (31 mi) southeast of Smolensk, former Russian Empire. During his childhood, he lived and studied in the city of Vitebsk, now part of Belarus, and later spent 10 years in Smolensk living with his grandparents and attending the Smolensk Grammar School, spending summer vacations in Vitebsk.[3] Always expressing an interest and talent in drawing, he started to receive instruction at 13 from Yehuda Pen, a local Jewish artist, and by the time he was 15 was teaching students himself. In 1909, he applied to an art academy in Saint Petersburg, but was rejected. While he passed the entrance exam and was qualified, the law under the Tsarist regime only allowed a limited number of Jewish students to attend Russian schools and universities. Like many other Jews then living in the Russian Empire, Lissitzky went to study in Germany. He left in 1909 to study architectural engineering at a Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt, Germany.[1] During the summer of 1912, Lissitzky, in his own words, "wandered through Europe", spending time in Paris and covering 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) on foot in Italy, teaching himself about fine art and sketching architecture and landscapes that interested him.[4] His interest in ancient Jewish culture had originated during the  with a Paris-based group of Russian Jews led by sculptor Ossip Zadkine, a lifetime friend of Lissitzky since early childhood, who exposed Lissitzky to conflicts between different groups within the diaspora.[5] Also in 1912 some of his pieces were included for the first time in an exhibit by the St. Petersburg Artists Union; a notable first step. He remained in Germany until the outbreak of World War I, when he was forced to return home through Switzerlandand the Balkans,[6] along with many of his countrymen, including other expatriate artists born in the former Russian Empire, such as Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall.[1] Upon his return to Moscow, Lissitzky attended the Polytechnic Institute of Riga, which had been evacuated to Moscow because of the war,[7] and worked for the architectural firms of Boris Velikovsky and Roman Klein.[6] During this work, he took an active and passionate interest in Jewish culture which, after the downfall of the openly antisemitic Tsarist regime, was experiencing a renaissance. The new Provisional Government repealed a decree that prohibited the printing of Hebrew letters and that barred Jews from citizenship. Thus Lissitzky soon devoted himself to Jewish art, exhibiting works by local Jewish artists, traveling to Mahilyow to study the traditional architecture and ornaments of old synagogues, and illustrating many Yiddish children's books. These books were Lissitzky's first major foray in book design, a field that he would greatly innovate during his career. Lissitzky's The Constructor, 1924, London, Victoria & Albert Museum His first designs appeared in the 1917 book, Sihas hulin: Eyne fun di geshikhten (An Everyday Conversation), where he incorporated Hebrew letters with a distinctly art nouveau flair. His next book was a visual retelling of the traditional Jewish Passover song Had gadya (One Goat), in which Lissitzky showcased a typographic device that he would often return to in later designs. In the book, he integrated letters with images through a system that matched the color of the characters in the story with the word referring to them. In the designs for the final page, Lissitzky depicts the mighty "hand of God" slaying the angel of death, who wears the tsar's crown. This representation links the redemption of the Jews with the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution.[8] An alternative view asserts that the artist was wary of Bolshevik internationalization, leading to destruction of traditional Jewish culture.[9] Visual representations of the hand of God would recur in numerous pieces throughout his entire career, most notably with his 1924[10] photomontage self-portrait The Constructor, which prominently featured the hand. Avant-garde[edit] Suprematism[edit] Proun. 1st Kestner Portfolio In May 1919,[3] upon receiving an invitation from fellow Jewish artist Marc Chagall, Lissitzky returned to Vitebsk to teach graphic arts, printing, and architecture at the newly formed People's Art School – a school that Chagall created after being appointed Commissioner of Artistic Affairs for Vitebsk in 1918. Lissitzky was engaged in designing and printing propaganda posters; later, he preferred to keep quiet about this period, probably because one of main subjects of these posters was the exile Leon Trotsky.[11] The quantity of these posters is sufficient to regard them as a separate genre in the artist's output.[12] Chagall also invited other Russian artists, most notably the painter and art theoretician Kazimir Malevich and Lissitzky's former teacher, Yehuda Pen. However, it was not until October 1919 when Lissitzky, then on an errand in Moscow, persuaded Malevich to relocate to Vitebsk.[13] The move coincided with the opening of the first art exhibition in Vitebsk directed by Chagall.[14] Malevich would bring with him a wealth of new ideas, most of which inspired Lissitzky but clashed with local public and professionals who favored figurative art and with Chagall himself.[15] After going through impressionism, primitivism, and cubism, Malevich began developing and advocating his ideas on suprematism aggressively. In development since 1915, suprematism rejected the imitation of natural shapes and focused more on the creation of distinct, geometric forms. He replaced the classic teaching program with his own and disseminated his suprematist theories and techniques school-wide. Chagall advocated more classical ideals and Lissitzky, still loyal to Chagall, became torn between two opposing artistic paths. Lissitzky ultimately favoured Malevich's suprematism and broke away from traditional Jewish art. Chagall left the school shortly thereafter. Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919 At this point Lissitzky subscribed fully to suprematism and, under the guidance of Malevich, helped further develop the movement. In 1919–1920 Lissitzky was a head of Architectural department at the People's Art School where with his students, primarily Lazar Khidekel, he was working on transition from plane to volumetric suprematism.[16] Lissitzky designed On the New System of Art by Malevich, who responded in December 1919: "Lazar Markovich, I salute you on the publication of this little book".[17] Perhaps the most famous work by Lissitzky from the same period was the 1919 propaganda poster "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge". Russia was going through a civil war at the time, which was mainly fought between the "Reds" (communists, socialists and revolutionaries) and the "Whites" (monarchists, conservatives, liberals and other socialists who opposed the Bolshevik Revolution). The image of the red wedge shattering the white form, simple as it was, communicated a powerful message that left no doubt in the viewer's mind of its intention. The piece is often seen as alluding to the similar shapes used on military maps and, along with its political symbolism, was one of Lissitzky's first major steps away from Malevich's non-objective suprematism into a style his own. He stated: "The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything that is already finished, already made, or already existent in the world – it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by the way of the people."[18] In January 17, 1920,[19] Malevich and Lissitzky co-founded the short-lived Molposnovis (Young followers of a new art), a proto-suprematist association of students, professors, and other artists. After a brief and stormy dispute between "old" and "young" generations, and two rounds of renaming, the group reemerged as UNOVIS(Exponents of the new art) in February.[20][21] Under the leadership of Malevich the group worked on a "suprematist ballet", choreographed by Nina Kogan and on the remake of a 1913 futurist opera Victory Over the Sun by Mikhail Matyushin and Aleksei Kruchenykh.[20][22] Lissitzky and the entire group chose to share credit and responsibility for the works produced within the group, signing most pieces with a black square. This was partly a homage to a similar piece by their leader, Malevich, and a symbolic embrace of the Communist ideal. This would become the de facto seal of UNOVIS that took the place of individual names or initials. Black squares worn by members as chest badges and cufflinks also resembled the ritual tefillin and thus were no strange symbol in Vitebsk shtetl.[23] The group, which disbanded in 1922, would be pivotal in the dissemination of suprematist ideology in Russia and abroad and launch Lissitzky's status as one of the leading figures in the avant garde. Incidentally, the earliest appearance of the signature Lissitzky (Russian: Эль Лисицкий) emerged in the handmade UNOVIS Miscellany, issued in two copies in March–April 1920,[24] and containing his manifesto on book art: "the book enters the skull through the eye not the ear therefore the pathways the waves move at much greater speed and with more intensity. if i (sic) can only sing through my mouth with a book i (sic) can show myself in various guises."[25] Proun[edit] A Proun, c.1925. Commenting on Proun in 1921, Lissitzky stated, "We brought the canvas into circles . . . and while we turn, we raise ourselves into the space."[8] During this period Lissitzky proceeded to develop a suprematist style of his own, a series of abstract, geometric paintingswhich he called Proun (pronounced "pro-oon"). The exact meaning of "Proun" was never fully revealed, with some suggesting that it is a contraction of proekt unovisa (designed by UNOVIS) or proekt utverzhdenya novogo (Design for the confirmation of the new). Later, Lissitzky defined them ambiguously as "the station where one changes from painting to architecture."[4] Proun was essentially Lissitzky's exploration of the visual language of suprematism with spatial elements, utilizing shifting axes and multiple perspectives; both uncommon ideas in suprematism. Suprematism at the time was conducted almost exclusively in flat, 2D forms and shapes, and Lissitzky, with a taste for architecture and other 3D concepts, tried to expand suprematism beyond this. His Proun works (known as Pro-oon) spanned over a half a decade and evolved from straightforward paintings and lithographs into fully three-dimensional installations. They would also lay the foundation for his later experiments in architecture and exhibition design. While the paintings were artistic in their own right, their use as a staging ground for his early architectonic ideas was significant. In these works, the basic elements of architecture – volume, mass, color, space and rhythm – were subjected to a fresh formulation in relation to the new suprematist ideals. Through his Prouns, utopian models for a new and better world were developed. This approach, in which the artist creates art with socially defined purpose, could aptly be summarized with his edict "das zielbewußte Schaffen" – "task oriented creation."[2] Jewish themes and symbols also sometimes made appearances in his Prounen, usually with Lissitzky using Hebrew letters as part of the typography or visual code. For the cover of the 1922 book Arba'ah Teyashim (Four Billy Goats; cover), he shows an arrangement of Hebrew letters as architectural elements in a dynamic design that mirrors his contemporary Proun typography.[8] This theme was extended into his illustrations for the Shifs-Karta (Passenger Ticket) book. Return to Germany[edit] International Congress of Progressive Artists, May 1922, Lissitzky 9th from left In 1921, roughly concurrent with the demise of UNOVIS, suprematism was beginning to fracture into two ideologically adverse halves, one favoring Utopian, spiritual art and the other a more utilitarian art that served society. Lissitzky was fully aligned with neither and left Vitebsk in 1921. He took a job as a cultural representative of Russia and moved to Berlin where he was to establish  between Russian and German artists. There he also took up work as a writer and designer for international magazines and journals while helping to promote the avant-garde through various gallery shows. He started the very short-lived but impressive periodical Veshch-Gegenstand Objekt with Russian-Jewish writer Ilya Ehrenburg. This was intended to display contemporary Russian art to Western Europe. It was a wide-ranging pan-arts publication, mainly focusing on new suprematist and constructivist works, and was published in German, French and Russian.[26] In the first issue, Lissitzky wrote: We consider the triumph of the constructive method to be essential for our present. We find it not only in the new economy and in the development of the industry, but also in the psychology of our contemporaries of art. Veshch will champion constructive art, whose mission is not, after all, to embellish life, but to organize it.[2] During his stay Lissitzky also developed his career as a graphic designer with some historically important works such as the books Dlia Golossa (For the Voice), a collection of poems from Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Die Kunstismen (The Artisms) together with Jean Arp. In Berlin he also met and befriended many other artists, most notably Kurt Schwitters, László Moholy-Nagy, and Theo van Doesburg.[27] Together with Schwitters and van Doesburg, Lissitzky presented the idea of an international artistic movement under the guidelines of constructivism while also working with Kurt Schwitters on the issue Nasci (Nature) of the periodical Merz, and continuing to illustrate children's books. The year after the publication of his first Proun series in Moscow in 1921, Schwitters introduced Lissitzky to the Hanovergallery kestnergesellschaft, where he held his first solo exhibition. The second Proun series, printed in Hanover in 1923, was a success, utilizing new printing techniques.[26] Later on, he met Sophie Kuppers, who was the widow of Paul Kuppers, an art director of the kestnergesellschaft at which Lissitzky was showing, and whom he would marry in 1927. Horizontal skyscrapers[edit] In 1923–1925, Lissitzky proposed and developed the idea of horizontal skyscrapers (Wolkenbügel, "cloud-irons"). A series of eight such structures was intended to mark the major intersections of the Boulevard Ring in Moscow. Each Wolkenbügel was a flat three-story, 180-meter-wide L-shaped slab raised 50 meters above street level. It rested on three pylons (10×16×50 meters each), placed on three different street corners. One pylon extended underground, doubling as the staircase into a proposed subway station; two others provided shelter for ground-level tram stations.[28][29] Lissitzky argued that as long as humans cannot fly, moving horizontally is natural and moving vertically is not. Thus, where there is not sufficient land for construction, a new plane created in the air at medium altitude should be preferred to an American-style tower. These buildings, according to Lissitzky, also provided superior insulation and ventilation for their inhabitants.[30] The print shop designed by El Lissitzky, showing the least damaged south end of the building Lissitzky, aware of severe mismatch between his ideas and the existing urban landscape, experimented with different configurations of the horizontal surface and height-to-width ratios so that the structure appeared balanced visually ("spatial balance is in the contrast of vertical and horizontal tensions").[30] The raised platform was shaped in a way that each of its four facets looked distinctly different. Each tower faced the Kremlin with the same facet, providing a pointing arrow to pedestrians on the streets. All eight buildings were planned identically, so Lissitzky proposed color-coding them for easier orientation.[31] An illustration of the concept appeared on the front cover of Adolf Behne's book Der Moderne Zweckbau, and articles on it written by Lissitzky appeared in the Moscow-based architectural review ASNOVA News (journal of ASNOVA, the Association of New Architects) and in the German art journal Das Kunstblatt. After some time of creating "paper architecture" projects such as the Wolkenbügels he was hired to design an actual building in Moscow. Located at 55.777277°N 37.610828°E 17, 1st Samotechny Lane, it is Lissitzky's sole tangible work of architecture. It was commissioned in 1932 by Ogonyok magazine to be used as a print shop. In June 2007 the independent Russky Avangard foundation filed a request to list the building on the heritage register. In September 2007 the city commission (Moskomnasledie) approved the request and passed it to the city government for a final approval, which did not happen. In October 2008, the abandoned building was badly damaged by fire.[32] Exhibitions of the 1920s[edit] After two years of intensive work Lissitzky was taken ill with acute pneumonia in October 1923. A few weeks later he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis; in February 1924 he relocated to a Swiss sanatorium near Locarno.[33] He kept very busy during his stay, working on advertisement designs for Pelikan Industries (who in turn paid for his treatment), translating articles written by Malevich into German, and experimenting heavily in typographic design and photography. In 1925, after the Swiss government denied his request to renew his visa, Lissitzky returned to Moscow and began teaching interior design, metalwork, and architecture at VKhUTEMAS(State Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops), a post he would keep until 1930. He all but stopped his Proun works and became increasingly active in architecture and propaganda designs. In June 1926, Lissitzky left the country again, this time for a brief stay in Germany and the Netherlands. There he designed an exhibition room for the Internationale Kunstausstellung art show in Dresden and the Raum Konstruktive Kunst (Room for constructivist art) and Abstraktes Kabinett shows in Hanover, and perfected the 1925 Wolkenbügel concept in collaboration with Mart Stam.[33] In his autobiography (written in June 1941, and later edited and released by his wife), Lissitzky wrote, "1926. My most important work as an artist begins: the creation of exhibitions."[4] Back in the USSR, Lissitzky designed displays for the official Soviet pavilions at the international exhibitions of the period, up to the 1939 New York World's Fair. One of his most notable exhibits was the All-Union Polygraphic Exhibit in Moscow in August–October 1927, where Lissitzky headed the design team for "photography and photomechanics" (i.e. photomontage) artists and the installation crew.[34] His work was perceived as radically new, especially when juxtaposed with the classicist designs of Vladimir Favorsky (head of the book art section of the same exhibition) and of the foreign exhibits. In the beginning of 1928, Lissitzky visited Cologne in preparation for the 1928 Pressa Show scheduled for April–May 1928. The state delegated Lissitzky to supervise the Soviet program; instead of building their own pavilion, the Soviets rented the existing central pavilion, the largest building on the fairground. To make full use of it, the Soviet program designed by Lissitsky revolved around the theme of a film show, with nearly continuous presentation of the new feature films, propagandist newsreels and early animation, on multiple screens inside the pavilion and on the open-air screens.[35] His work was praised for near absence of paper exhibits; "everything moves, rotates, everything is energized" (Russian: всё движется, заводится, электрифицируется).[36] Lissitzky also designed and managed on site less demanding exhibitions like the 1930 Hygiene show in Dresden.[37] Along with pavilion design, Lissitzky began experimenting with print media again. His work with book and periodical design was perhaps some of his most accomplished and influential. He launched radical innovations in typography and photomontage, two fields in which he was particularly adept. He even designed a photomontage birth announcement in 1930 for his recently born son, Jen. The image itself is seen as being another personal endorsement of the Soviet Union,[8] as it superimposed an image of the infant Jen over a factory chimney, linking Jen's future with his country's industrial progress. Around this time, Lissitzky's interest in book design escalated. In his remaining years, some of his most challenging and innovative works in this field would develop. In discussing his vision of the book, he wrote: In contrast to the old monumental art [the book] itself goes to the people, and does not stand like a cathedral in one place waiting for someone to approach . . . [The book is the] monument of the future.[2] He perceived books as permanent objects that were invested with power. This power was unique in that it could transmit ideas to people of different times, cultures, and interests, and do so in ways other art forms could not. This ambition laced all of his work, particularly in his later years. Lissitzky was devoted to the idea of creating art with power and purpose, art that could invoke change. Later years[edit] In 1932, Stalin closed down independent artists' unions; former avant-garde artists had to adapt to the new climate or risk being officially criticised or even blacklisted. Lissitzky retained his reputation as the master of exhibition art and management into the late 1930s. His tuberculosis gradually reduced his physical abilities, and he was becoming more and more dependent on his wife in actual completion of his work.[38] In 1937, Lissitzky served as the lead decorator for the upcoming All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, reporting to the master planner Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky but largely independent and highly critical of him. The project was plagued by delays and political interventions. By the end of 1937 the "apparent simplicity" of Lissitzky's artwork aroused the concerns of the political supervisors, and Lissitzky responded: "The simpler the shape, the finer precision and quality of execution required... yet until now [the working crews] are instructed by the foremen (Oltarzhevsky and Korostashevsky), not the authors" (i.e. Vladimir Shchuko, author of the Central Pavilion, and Lissitzky himself).[39] His artwork, as described in 1937 proposals, completely departed from the modernist art of the 1920s in favor of socialist realism. The iconic statue of Stalin in front of the central pavilion was proposed by Lissitzky personally: "this will give the square its head and its face" (Russian: Это должно дать площади и голову и лицо).[39] In June 1938, he was only one of seventeen professionals and managers responsible for the Central Pavilion;[40] in October 1938, he shared the responsibility for its Main Hall decoration with Vladimir Akhmetyev.[41] He simultaneously worked on the decoration of the Soviet pavilion for the 1939 New York World's Fair; the June 1938 commission considered Lissitzky's work along with nineteen other proposals and eventually rejected it.[42] Lissitzky's work on the USSR im Bau (USSR in construction) magazine took his experimentation and innovation with book design to an extreme. In issue #2 he included multiple fold-out pages, presented in concert with other folded pages that together produced design combinations and a narrative structure that was completely original. Each issue focused on a particular issue of the time – a new dam being built, constitutional reforms, Red Army progress and so on. In 1941, his tuberculosis worsened, but he continued to produce works, one of his last being a propaganda poster for Russia's efforts in World War II, titled "Davaite pobolshe tankov!" (Give us more tanks!) He died on December 30, 1941, in Moscow. Lissitzky, El ContentsHide Suggested Reading Author (1890–1941), abstract artist and theorist, graphic designer, architect, typographer, photographer, and propagandist. El (Lazar [Eleazar] Markovich) Lissitzky was born in Pochinok, near Smolensk, Russia, and died in Moscow. He chose his name in imitation of El Greco and to affirm his new artistic identity. His artistic career can be divided into three overlapping periods: (1) Jewish, from 1915 to 1923; (2) Suprematist, from 1919 to the early 1920s; and (3) Stalinist, in the 1930s. The following overview emphasizes his first period, when he participated intensively in the Jewish art renaissance in Russia and played a significant role in its development (Soviet and Western critics typically discount the importance of his early work). Shifs karta (Ship Pass), illustration from Shest’ poviestei o legkikh kontsakh (Six Stories with Easy Endings) by Ilya Ehrenburg. El Lissitzky, 1922. Collage. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (© The Israel Museum / The Bridgeman Art Library / © 2006 Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn) El Lissitzky grew up partially in Vitebsk, where at age 13 he met Yehudah Pen at Pen’s art school, which Marc Chagall also attended. Refused entrance into the Academy of Art in Saint Petersburg (most likely because of the Jewish quota), in 1909 El Lissitzky entered the Darmstadt Technische Hochschule. He traveled widely in Europe, creating drawings that he later reworked. In 1914, he returned to Russia, where with the artist Yisakhar Rybak he participated in the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society’s expeditions in the summers of 1915 and 1916, exploring synagogues along the Dniepr River and collecting Jewish artifacts. El Lissitzky made fine drawings of frescoes from the eighteenth-century Mohilev synagogue, which were later published with his Reminiscences(1923) in the early Jewish art journals Milgroym(Yiddish) and Rimon (Hebrew), both meaning pomegranate. These drawings were intended both to prove the existence of and to preserve Jewish folk art, as well as to provide—in imitation of the Russian Mir Iskusstva movement and cubo-futurist modernism—the basis for a modern Jewish style. El Lissitzky’s first important work appeared in 1917, in the form of illustrations for Moyshe Broderzon’s Sikhes khulin (Profane [Idle] Chatter), a whimsical Yiddish erotic poem. Conceiving of each page as an integrated whole, El Lissitzky surrounded classic double columns of Hebrew script with stroke-based figures derived from the ornamental style of Jewish folk art. Although each leaf is different, the illustration complements the text, hastening or retarding the narrative as needed. He also added pools of saturated color over black strokes. The text was rolled like a scroll and boxed like a mezuzah. This work represents the first modern Jewish art book, fusing Hebrew scribal tradition with modernist stylized archaizing figure and line. In 1917, El Lissitzky took part in the first exhibition of Jewish artists held in Moscow. In 1918, he joined the fine arts section of the Educational Commissariat of the Bolshevik government, illustrating Yiddish and Hebrew books for children until 1923. His drawings for Mani Leyb’s Yingl tsingl khvat(The Mischievous Boy; 1918–1919) alternated Hebrew letters with animal forms and the printed verse. This so-called Jewish style made him a much sought-after illustrator, with his work appearing in 30 different Jewish publications from 1918 to 1923. Iz gekumen dos fayer un farbrent dem shtekn" (Then Came a Fire and Burnt the Stick). 'From Khad gadya (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1919). El Lissitzky. Color lithograph on paper. (© 2006 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / YIVO) El Lissitzky’s colored lithographic volume of the traditional Passover song “Khad gadye” (One Kid; 1919)—a reworking of earlier watercolors dating from 1917–1918—marked his last innovation as a participant in the Jewish art renaissance. These 10 illustrations share a common page design, always divided into three parts. At the top is a Hebrew letter as a numeral in animal form. In the middle section there is a Jugendstil domed frame with a key Aramaic verse in Yiddish, below which is a flat, figural illustration consisting of curvilinear lines with distinct areas of color, nonrealistic scale, and an imaginative handling of pictorial space (e.g., a firebird bigger than a church; people flying about); the composition, asymmetrical and on a diagonal axis, constantly seeks to achieve a dynamic sense of movement. At the bottom of the page, one finds the original Aramaic opening words. Some see this work as supporting the Bolshevik cause in its handling of the traditional text by means of the illustrations; the color symbolism and imagery tends to support this view. In 1919, Mark Chagall hired El Lissitzky to teach graphic arts at the Vitebsk Art Academy. With the arrival of Kasimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, influenced by the former’s suprematism, began his celebrated abstract series of drawings and lithographs, which he named Prouns (Project for the Affirmation of the New; 1919–1923). This radical aesthetic and intellectual redirection did not signal a break with his Jewish milieu, however. He relinquished Chagallian ideas of representation and the attempt to create a Jewish national style and instead embraced suprematist art as a new means of interpreting reality. In 1919–1920, El Lissitzky participated in the art shows of Unovis (suprematist collective), producing the masterful abstract poster Klinom krasnym bei belykh (Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge), a play on the antisemitic slur “Beat the Jews!” He moved to Moscow in 1920 and joined the Institute of Artistic Culture, becoming an adherent of constructivism. In Berlin in 1922, he and the Soviet Jewish writer Ilya Ehrenburg cofounded the journal Vesh / Object / Gegenstand, devoted to constructivist issues. He also illustrated Ehrenburg’s volume Shest’ poviestei o legkikh kontsakh (Six Stories with Easy Endings; 1922). Notable is Shifs karta (Ship [Immigration] Pass) with its modernist photocollage, shaped like a Star of David and consisting of a selection from the Mishnah, a temple diagram, an American flag, a black hand pressing down, and on the palm the Hebrew letters pe and nun, the traditional po nikbar (here rests) found on Jewish tombstones. The collage suggests the end of Jewish wandering as well as the persistence of traditional Jewish beliefs. Elefandl (The Elephant's Child), by Rudyard Kipling (Berlin: Thresholds, 1922). Illustrated by El Lissitzky. Yiddish translation of an English-language classic. (© 2006 Artists Rights Society [ARS], New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/YIVO) El Lissitzky continued to publish on Jewish themes, contributing an article on the new art in Ringen (1922), a Polish Yiddish journal, as well as a description of the Mohilev synagogue frescoes in the journal Milgroym. Using suprematist style, he also illustrated Leyb Kvitko’s Yiddish translations of Ukrainian and White Russian folktales (1923). El Lissitzky participated in the International Dada Congress held in Düsseldorf in 1922, published an article on his Prouns in the journal De Stijl the same year, and visited the Bauhaus in Weimar. Around this time, he designed Vladimir Mayakovsky’s volume Dlia golosa (For the Voice; 1923), using new abstract constructivist design and typography, as well as creating the design for a Proun room at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. In 1924, he worked with Kurt Schwitters on the magazine MERZ and joined Jean Arp in creating the volume Die Kunstismen (The Isms of Art; 1925). These productive years in Berlin, when he moved in the most advanced artistic circles, were not devoid of Jewish as Berlin in the early 1920s was a center of Jewish cultural activity. A number of dadaist and Bauhaus members based in that city (e.g., Arp, László Moholy-Nagy, and Man Ray) shared the same historical roots as Ehrenburg and El Lissitzsky; all were cosmopolitan Jews or Jewish cosmopolitans. In 1925, El Lissitzky returned to Moscow. His designs in 1926 for the Room for Constructivist Art at the International Art Show in Dresden cemented his fame as a cutting-edge artist and designer. Beginning in 1926, he produced works for Soviet trade exhibitions and propaganda shows. These included integrated display rooms that fused his interest in architecture, photomontage, photocollage, typography, and posters in the most advanced constructivist style based on his unique designs. The absence of any Jewish connection in El Lisstzky’s life after 1926 suggests that he followed the lead of others in adapting to changing Soviet realities. Ill health led to his untimely death in 1941. Broderzon, Moyshe ContentsHide Suggested Reading YIVO Archival Resources Author Translation (1890–1956), Yiddish poet and playwright. The son of a well-to-do businessman, Moscow-born Moyshe Broderzon and his family were among the Jews expelled from that city in 1891. His father moved to Łódź but Broderzon’s mother and the children went to Nesivizh (Pol., Nieśwież), her native town in Belorussia. In 1900, the family was reunited in Łódź. Broderzon studied accounting at a business school there and worked in that field for several years after 1907. He also wrote poems in Russian, though these pieces were not printed. In 1908, he began to write in Yiddish and published humorous skits in the Lodzer tageblat, under the pseudonym Broder Zinger. Broderzon published his first collection of poems, Shvartse fliterlekh (Black Spangles), in 1913; Yiddish writer Avrom Reyzen praised the book. Broderzon left Łódź in 1914 when the German army occupied the city; he moved to Moscow and associated with other Jewish artists and writers. With the visual artists Yoysef Tshaykov (Iosif Chaikov), Yisakhar Rybak, and El Lissitzky, he created the Krayzl fun Yidish Natsyonaler Estetik (Circle for Jewish National Aesthetic). In 1917, after the tsarist regime fell, he published the epic poem Sikhes khulin (Idle Chatter), which El Lissitzky illustrated. The work was a radical, modernist adaptation of Mayse yerushalmi, a major piece from old Yiddish literature dating from the sixteenth century. The edition is now considered a key representation of avant-garde Jewish art. That same year, Broderzon published Temerl (Little Tamar), a children’s story illustrated by Tshaykov. In early 1918, Broderzon, El Lissitzky, and the Yiddish writers Daniel Tsharni and Menashe Halperin founded the Moscow Circle of Jewish Writers and Artists. With Tsharni, Halperin, and Gershon Broyde, he published a collection of poems titled Zalbefert (All Four), reminiscent of the futurist collection The Three published in Russian in 1913 by Viktor Khlebnikov, Aleksei Kruchenykh, and Elena Guro. In July 1918, Broderzon published a Yiddish translation of Aleksandr Blok’s The Twelve, and in 1919 Broderzon’s collection of poems titled Toy (Dew) was printed in Moscow. Consisting of 100 tankas, a Japanese poetic form, the work reflected his aim of enriching Yiddish poetry with new forms. Poem by Moyshe Broderzon, “Tsvey tsufelige sonetn: Hu-ha” (Two Accidental Sonnets: Hoo-ha), n.d. "The earth sweats off the evaporating snow / And a moist lightness hovers over the face of the earth. . . ." According to an accompanying note from the donor of this manuscript, Mendel Singer, this poem was submitted to the Yiddish journal Di tsayt in Vienna in 1924, but Singer does not recall if it was actually published. Yiddish. RG 108, Manuscripts Collection, F11.4.1. (YIVO) In December 1918, Broderzon returned to Łódź, where his extravagant appearance quickly made an impression on the Yiddish cultural circles organized around the tutelary figure of the Yiddish and Hebrew writer Yitsḥak Katzenelson. Broderzon had long, thick black hair, Pushkin-style sideburns, and a black shirt characteristic of a Russian worker. He was the only poet in Łódź to wear amber and coral necklaces, and rings on his fingers. With the artist Yankl Adler, who had been part of the expressionist group Das Junge Rheinland in Düsseldorf, and Marek Szwarc, who from 1910 to 1914 was part of the Montparnasse circle of artists in Paris, he founded the group of writers and artists called Yung-yidish. In 1919, three issues of the review of the same name were published, and in 1920 and 1921 nine works appeared, including seven by Broderzon: the poetry collection Perl oyfn bruk (Pearls on the Cobblestones; 1920); Tkhiyes-hameysim (The Resurrection of the Dead; 1921), a dramatic poem whose form was inspired by medieval mystery plays; the long poem Shvarts-shabes(Black Sabbath; 1921); the puppet show Tsungenlungen (Tongues-lungs; 1921); as well as three short plays for which Broderzon created the neologism Dramolet: the titles were A khasnke(Nuptials; 1920), Di malke Shvo (The Queen of Sheba; 1921), and Shney-tants (Snow Dance; 1921). In these years, Broderzon also published the poetry collections Bagaysterung (Enthusiasm; 1920) and Ibergang (Passage; 1921), and the short play Mandragorn (Mandrakes) in issues 7–9 of the review Ringen (1921). In 1922, Perets Markish, Uri Tsevi Grinberg, and Israel Joshua Singer founded the group Khalyastre (The Band), but Broderzon’s involvement was rejected, especially by Markish, as his writing was considered to be insufficiently avant-garde and too attached to rhyme. Nonetheless, a stanza of his poem “Tsu di shtern” (To the Stars) was featured as an epigraph in the first issue of the review Khalyastre (1922). In the period between the wars, despite the deteriorating economic and political situation, and some vague thoughts of emigration, Broderzon resolutely remained in Łódź where he felt intimately linked with the network of Yiddish culture in Poland. He had left Moscow in 1918 partly to seek a Jewish public, and the same reason kept him in Łódź. To do so, he launched himself into popular theater. In 1922, he and writer Yekhezkl-Moyshe Nayman, visual artist Yitskhok Broyner, and composer Henekh Kon founded the puppet theater Khad-gadye. In 1924, Broderzon was the librettist for the first Yiddish opera performed in Warsaw, Dovid un Basheve (David and Bathsheba), with music by Kon. In 1926, he wrote texts for Warsaw’s Azazel, the first Yiddish theater café in Poland. But his major achievement in this period was the founding with his acting students of the cabaret theater Ararat (acronym for Artistisher Revolutsyonerer Revi-Teatr [Artistic Revolutionary Revue-Theater]) in Łódź in 1927. During the 1930s, it was one of the most popular and creative venues for Yiddish theater touring in Poland and Western Europe, providing comedians Shimen Dzigan, Yisroel Shumacher, and Yoysef Tunkel among others with a base from which they forged international reputations. “Ararat. Artistic Director: Moyshe Broderzon. Short skits by the famous Kleynkunst[cabaret] theater!” Polish/Yiddish poster, artwork by Kultura, printed by M. Kon, Łódź, ca. 1930s. (YIVO) In the interwar years, Broderzon devoted most of his energy to theater. Most of the sketches he wrote for Ararat have disappeared, except for a few that were published in newspapers and magazines. In 1936, he published Forshtelungen(Performances), 12 one-act plays, very few of which were produced. With the rise of Nazism in Germany and the intensification of antisemitism in Poland, most of the plays were about the dangers of being Jewish in a non-Jewish environment, represented dramatically by historical figures such as Yehudah Halevi, Benedict Spinoza, and Heinrich Heine. Broderzon’s last major published work was Yud(1939), a poem with 50 sections; here the despair expressed in Forshtelungen reached its fullest expression and anticipated the Holocaust. Broderzon fled Łódź in September 1939 and went to Białystok, where he remained until the city was invaded by the German army in June 1941. He was evacuated to a small town in central Asia. In 1944, he was summoned to Moscow, where he taught at the drama school of the state Yiddish theater (GOSET). During Stalin’s postwar wave of terror against Jewish culture, however, Broderzon was arrested on 28 April 1950 and condemned to 10 years in a labor camp. In September 1955, he was rehabilitated and freed, and at the end of June 1956, he was permitted to return to Poland and planned to immigrate to Israel. He was warmly welcomed in Warsaw by the small Yiddish literary circle that had regrouped there after the war. But in despair at seeing a Poland that had become a Jewish cemetery and weakened by years in a labor camp, he died of a heart attack in Warsaw on 17 August 1956. A portion of his writings from the war and postwar years was published in Tel Aviv as Dos letste lid (The Last Poem; 1974). Considered a “master of rhyme,” Moyshe Broderzon left his mark on the literature of his age. Like Y. L. Peretz, he enriched Yiddish literature with new forms. As a poet and especially as a dramatist, he was considered an avant-garde artist who saw art as a single entity. On the modest stage of the cabaret theater, he tested the meeting of various arts: painting, music, poetry, drama, dance, and popular song.  Moishe Broderzon (November 23, 1890 — August 17, 1956) was a Yiddish poet, theatre director, and the founder of the Łódź literary group Yung-yidish. He was born 1890 in Moscow, but his family was among the Jews expelled in 1891. His father moved to Łódź; his mother took her children to her father's home in Nesvizh (Nieswiez), Belorussia. In 1900, the family was reunited in Łódź.[1][2] He became a bookkeeper and began writing short narratives in the Yiddish press in Łódź. In 1914 he issued a collection of his poems called Shvartse fliterlekh (Black Spangles). He was a founder of Yung-Yidish artists collaborative.[2] [Broderson's] extravagant appearance quickly made an impression on the Yiddish cultural circles organized around the tutelary figure of the Yiddish and Hebrew writer Yitschak Katzenelson. Broderzon had long, thick black hair, Pushkin-style sideburns, and a black shirt characteristic of a Russian worker. He was the only poet in Łódź to wear amber and coral necklaces, and rings on his fingers.. — Gilles Rozier, YIVO Encyclopedia, Moyshe Broderzon article When the Germans invaded Łódź, Broderson removed to Moscow and began publishing his poetry in the Yiddish press. With friends he established the Krayzl fun Yidish Natsyonaler Estetik (Circle for Jewish National Aesthetic). In 1918 he founded (with El Lissitzky, and writers Daniel Tsharni, Gershon Broyde, and Menashe Halpern) the Moscow Circle of Jewish Writers and Artists.[1] In 1918, at the age of 28, Broderzon returned to Łódź.[3] He was a founder of the literary group Yung-yidish, which published a journal of the same name. The journal featured poetry, prose, and experimental art. His wife, Sheyne-Miryam,[4] was an actress famed for a chasidic dance routine.[5] Broderzon also founded several theatres in Łódź: In 1922, with Yekhezkl-Moyshe Nayman, Yitschok Broyner, and Henech Konhe created the Yiddish Marionette Theater Khad Gadyo (Chad-gadye, Khad-gadye), and Shor habor, a variety theater. In 1924 he and Henekh Kon wrote the music for the first Yiddish opera performed in Warsaw, Dovid un Basheve (David and Bathseba), performed in Warsaw's Kaminski Theater; he also wrote a libretto for the opera Monish based on I. L. Peretz's epic romantic poem.[2] In 1926 he began writing for the Azazel theater cafe in Warsaw. In 1927 he was one of the founders of the kleynkunst stage Ararat in Łódź, an experimental theater that featured the actors Shimon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher.[6]He often wrote articles about Yiddish theater.[2] His final lyrics, which appeared in 1939 with the single letter Yud as title, comprise 50 poems of 16 lines each, laden with tragic premonitions of the end of Polish Jewry in a coming world catastrophe. — Nanette Stahl, Judaica Collection, Yale University He and his wife, Sheyne Miriam, escaped from Poland into the Soviet Union in 1939 after the Nazi invasion.[7] They worked in the Yiddish theatre in Moscow and became Soviet citizens. He was arrested in April 1950, sentenced to ten years in prison, and sent to Siberia. After five years in a labor camp he was "rehabilitated" in September 1955 and was allowed to return to Poland in July 1956;[7] he was greeted there by a small number of literati who had reunited after the war. "But in despair at seeing a Poland that had become a Jewish cemetery and weakened by years in a labor camp, he died of a heart attack in Warsaw on 17 August 1956."[1]     ebay3816
  • Condition: Used
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  • Country of Manufacture: Israel
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  • Country/Region of Manufacture: Russian Federation
  • Religion: Judaism

PicClick Insights - 1957 Judaica FACSIMILE EDITION Yiddish LISSITZKY Russian 1917 JEWISH AVANT GARDE PicClick Exclusive

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