Lot 338
The Miller, the Milleress and the Millstones– Illustrations by Lissitzky – Warsaw, 1923
The Miller, the Milleress and the Millstones, written by Benzion Raskin, illustrated by Eliezer Lissitzky. Poland [Warsaw]: "Tarbut", 1923.
Story for children, with illustrations by the artist Eliezer Lissitzky. 15, [1] pp, 21 cm. Good condition. Restored tears to front and back cover. The booklet, as a whole, is rebound.
"In April 1919 Benzion Raskin and Eliezer Lissitzky signed a contract with 'Yidisher Folks verlag' in Kiev, probably due to financial problems. According to this contract they were obliged to sell the copyrights of eleven children's books…for some reason only three of them have been published in Yiddish as planned. However, three years later a series of books for infants in Hebrew has been published in Warsaw…The series called 'Zil Zlil', included five books…out of the five booklets, only one, 'The Miller, the Milleress and the Millstones, was translated into Hebrew, and the illustrations were copied from the illustrations created by Lissitzky for the Yiddish books…there is something too slim in those illustrations as if they were done hastily.
The reason might have been that there was a need to produce many books in a short period of time. It is possible, on the other hand, that Lissitzky limited himself to minimal lines on purpose, similar to the way children draw. At that period it was common amongst the modern artists to believe that a child's art reflects a primary concept of the world, and many artists were inspired by this art". (From: Ayala Gordon, Hebrew Illustrations – the Hebrew Illustrated Book for Children, Tel-Aviv, 2005, pp 83-84.)From the collection of Arnie Druck.
