Lot 427
Majdanek – Portfolio of Paintings – Tolkatchev – Warsaw, 1945
TOLKACZEW, Zinowij [Tolkatchev, Zinovii]. Majdanek [Maydanek – A Destruction Camp]. Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1945.
Limited edition, numbered portfolio (600 copies) containing 28 paintings by Tolkatchev, created after he participated in the Soviet liberation of the Maydanek concentration camp in July 1944. Tolkatchev was a Russian artist who enlisted in the Red Army in 1941. In 1944, he was stationed on the Ukrainian front, near Majdanek. Horrified by what he witnessed, Tolkatchev spent a month painting scenes from within the newly liberated death camp. A member of the Polish-Soviet Nazi Crimes Investigation Commission encouraged Tolkatchev’s work and in November 1944, his exhibition of Majdanek paintings became one of the earliest artistic depictions to publicly document the Nazi death camps. When this portfolio was published soon after, in February 1945, the Polish Government sent copies to Allied heads of states and government and military officers. Looking back on his work, Tolkatchev wrote, “I did what I had to do; I couldn’t refrain from doing it. My heart commanded, my conscience demanded.” Today these works are in the collection of the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem.
[3, 8, 26] pp, 36x26cm. Text in Polish, Russian, English and French. Good Plus condition, with minor wear to the edges of some pages. A few pages with creases and restored tears. Lacking original portfolio cover. Enclosed in a custom cloth-covered clamshell case.
Accompanied by "Private Tolkatchev at the Gates of Hell – Majdanek and Auschwitz Liberated: Testimony of an Artist", a catalog of a 2005 exhibition at Yad Vashem. All the works in the Majdanek portfolio appear and are described in the exhibition catalog.
