Lot 116
Album of Photograph by Photographer Avraham Soskin – Presented to Maxa Nordau on the Occasion of Her Visit to Tel Aviv, 1926
26 original photographs by Avraham Soskin, mounted in an album, presented to Maxa Nordau, daughter of Max Nordau. Tel-Aviv, 1926.
A printed Hebrew and English dedication is mounted at the beginning of the album, stamped with the emblem of Tel-Aviv: "With the Compliments of the Township of Tel Aviv, to Miss Maxa Nordau, As a Souvenir of Her Visit to Tel-Aviv in May 1926".
The photographs depict: "First meeting of Tel Aviv proprietors on the site of Tel Aviv" (known as "The Seashell Lottery"), rare; leveling sand dunes; Herzl Street in 1910 and in the years 1924-1925; Rothschild Boulevard (in the years 1910, 1925); Herzlia Gymnasium; Nordia quarter; Tel Nordau neighborhood; the reinternment of the remains of Max Nordau opposite the old city hall building; Menachem Ussishkin delivering a speech in memory of Nordau at "Beit Ha'am"; Nordau's grave; and more. The photographs are captioned on separate notes (printed in English. Numbered 1-20, 22-27). Unsigned.
Maxa Nordau (1897-1991) – French painter, illustrator and writer, the only daughter of Max Nordau (1849-1923) – one of the founders of the Zionist Movement, philosopher, physician and writer, born in Hungary. Max Nordau died in 1923, while visiting Paris. In 1926 his remains were reinterred in Palestine, in the cemetery on Trumpeldor Street in Tel Aviv.
Avraham Soskin (1881-1963) was born in Russia and immigrated to Palestine in 1905. He settled in the German colony in Jaffa and opened the "Photographia Progress" photography studio together with G. Bruck. In 1914 Soskin moved to 24 Herzl St., where the second floor served as both a photography studio and a home for his family and himself; at this studio, called "Photographia A. Soskin", he worked for 19 years, retiring from photography in 1933. Soskin, known as the "Photographer of Tel Aviv", was among the most important photographers active in Palestine during the Yishuv period. He is unique in the abundance of photographs he took, documenting the first two decades of the first Hebrew city; some of Soskin's photos from those years, which became iconic and most identified with the early days of Tel Aviv, are included in this album.
Photographs: approx. 9X16.5 cm to 11X17 cm. Album: 21.5X27 cm, bound with string. Good condition. Minor blemishes, mainly to binding.
