Auction 75 - Rare and Important Items
Yisakhar Ber Rybak (1897-1935) – Original Artwork for the Title Page of the Book "Shtetl, My House in Ruins"
Opening: $2,000
Estimate: $3,000 - $5,000
Sold for: $2,750
Including buyer's premium
Original artwork by Yisakhar Ber Rybak upon which the title page of the album "Shtetl, Meyn Horever Heym, a Gedekhnish" ("Shtetl, My House in Ruins, a Remembrance") was based. [Berlin, 1922/23].
Watercolor on paper, mounted on cardboard. Signed.
47.5X31.5 cm. Good condition.
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.
The album "Shtetl, Meyn Horever Heiym" ("Shtetl, My House in Ruins"), published in 1923, has been widely regarded as one of the pinnacles of Rybak’s career. The album’s twenty-nine lithographs, documenting life in the shtetl, were created in the immediate aftermath of a horrendous wave of pogroms – in one of which his own father was murdered – that ravaged the towns and villages of the Pale of Settlement following the First World War. The lithographs focus on a typical Jewish shtetl, its houses, and the craftsmen who lived and labored in them. The works capture selected moments in the lives of these shtetls and present a frozen image which serves as a lamentation for the artist’s boyhood environs, documenting scenes that would never again be the same as they once were.
Provenance: The Estate of Yisakhar Ber Rybak.
Watercolor on paper, mounted on cardboard. Signed.
47.5X31.5 cm. Good condition.
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.
The album "Shtetl, Meyn Horever Heiym" ("Shtetl, My House in Ruins"), published in 1923, has been widely regarded as one of the pinnacles of Rybak’s career. The album’s twenty-nine lithographs, documenting life in the shtetl, were created in the immediate aftermath of a horrendous wave of pogroms – in one of which his own father was murdered – that ravaged the towns and villages of the Pale of Settlement following the First World War. The lithographs focus on a typical Jewish shtetl, its houses, and the craftsmen who lived and labored in them. The works capture selected moments in the lives of these shtetls and present a frozen image which serves as a lamentation for the artist’s boyhood environs, documenting scenes that would never again be the same as they once were.
Provenance: The Estate of Yisakhar Ber Rybak.
Ceremonial Objects and Art
Ceremonial Objects and Art