Auction 93 Part 1 - Manuscripts, Prints and Engravings, Objects and Facsimiles, from the Gross Family Collection, and Private Collections
Children's Tales – Illustrations by Yisakhar Ber Ryba – Booklet III, Berlin, 1922
"Mayselekh far Kleyninke Kinderlekh" ("Little Tales for Little Children") – tales by Miriam Margolin, illustrated by Yisakhar Ber Rybak. [Petrograd]: Jewish section of the commissariat for peoples' education, 1922 (printed in Berlin). Yiddish.
Three booklets under the title "Mayselekh far Kleyninke Kinderlekh" were published in 1922. Each featured tales by Miriam Margolin, illustrated by Yisakhar Ber Rybak (full–page, black and white illustration facing each tale).
This is a copy of the third booklet (as indicated by the numeral III, printed in the lower right corner of the front cover.)
[14] leaves (leaves 2-3 bound upside down). 21.5X27.5 cm. Good condition. Minor stains. Inscriptions and stamps. Tears and worming, professionally restored (minor damage to cover illustrations).
Yisakhar Ber Rybak (1897–1935), native of Elisavetgrad, Russia (today Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine), painter, graphic artist, and sculptor; one of the most prominent artists of the Russian–Jewish avant–garde. Studied at the Academy of Art in Kiev and in the studio of Aleksandra Ekster. In 1915–16, he was a member of the ethnographic expedition, headed by Shlomo An–ski, that aimed to document the culture of the Jewish communities of Podolia and Volhynia, and, working side–by–side with El Lissitzky, he produced copy–sketches of tombstones and monuments and documented the popular art he observed in the wooden synagogues of villages in the Pale of Settlement. For Rybak, this experience marked the beginnings of an enduring love affair with themes borrowed from popular Jewish tradition, and these themes and motifs provided the elemental foundations for his future work. He became one of the most active and outspoken artists of the "Kultur Lige" ("Culture League"), and taught drawing in the school that operated under the auspices of its art division. In 1921, he moved to Berlin, where he joined the "November Gruppe" and participated in joint exhibitions with other member artists. Rybak subsequently returned briefly to the Soviet Union and then moved to Paris, where he died in 1935.
Exhibition:
• Sanctity – Art – Aesthetics, Exhibition catalog, Mané-Katz Museum, 2011.
Provenance: The Gross Family Collection, B.1362.