Lot 131
"Anti-Pogrom Day" - Poster designed by Leonard Pinkhof - Amsterdam, 1919
Anti-Pogrom-Dag [Anti Pogrom Day]. A poster designed by L. [Leonard] Pinkhof (signed in the plate). Amsterdam, 1919. Dutch.
Advertising poster for events held in Amsterdam on July 27, 1919, in protest against the pogroms of Russian Jews. (In a pogrom that took place on February 15, 1919 during the ‘Petliura’ pogroms in Proskurov [Khmelnytskyi], between 1,200 and 1,500 Jews were murdered).
The text is printed in black, in two columns on the left and right of the poster. Between them is a large, ominous, illustration in red of a sinister eagle, blood dripping from its beak and claws, clutching the head of a Jew with a frightened look on his face, who in turn is holding in his arms a crying woman about to collapse. Below them, lying on the floor with his head bowed, is a Jewish boy wearing a Talith and Tefillin.
The text and image is surrounded by a black frame that creates - with the illustration and the combination of the red and black colors - a dramatic quality resembling an obituary.
Leonard Pinkhof (1898-1944) was a Jewish-Dutch painter and educator. He spent most of his adult life in Den Helder, Holland, and was active in the life of the Jewish and artistic communities of the town. In 1940, when Holland was occupied by the German army, he was fired from his job. He wandered between several towns until he was captured in 1944 and deported to the extermination camp in Sobibor, where he was murdered.
76X106 cm. Good condition. Creases. Slight tears at margins. Some tears restored with pasted papers on the reverse, with some minor color corrections. The upper right corner was lacking and has been professionally restored, including color completion. Some stains.
Literature: Memorbook: History of Dutch Jewry from the Renaissance to 1940, by Mozes Heiman Gans, Baarn, 1977, p. 629 (illustrated).
