Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Arthur Szyk - DRAWING AGAINST NATIONAL SOCIALISM AND TERROR
An exhibition of the German Historical Museum in cooperation with the Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, USA
Curators: Katja Widmann, Johannes Zechner
http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/arthur-szyk/index.html
Arthur Szyk (1894–1951) was one of the most memorable political caricaturists and illustrators during World War II. With his artist’s pencil he fought against the National Socialist regime and its Axis partners. His pieces appeared in highcirculation American magazines and daily newspapers. With his drawings and the active involvement in relief organizations, he sought ceaselessly to direct the public’s attention to the mass murder of the European Jews. The First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt referred to him as a “one-man army”. The exhibition provides a representative cross section of Szyk’s oeuvre for the first time in Germany, focusing in particular on his political drawings.
Art and Politics
Szyk grew up as the child of Jewish parents in the Russian-occupied part of Poland. His Jewish-Polish origin inspired a particular sensibility to societal prejudices and political discrimination. He formed a desire to use art for affecting society. During his art studies in Paris, he began to explore its modern trends. Rejecting abstraction, he saw medieval book illuminations and Renaissance prints as his role models. With the precision of a master craftsman, Szyk worked in a traditional and broadly understandable pictorial language to convey relevant messages. Szyk saw himself as a political artist. In the beginning, he mainly worked as an illustrator of books and historical texts. Many of his works dealt with the Jews’ situation in the European societies and the values of democracy and freedom.
The artist embellished their armor not only with their order’s cross, but also with swastikas and skulls. Through the combination of these insignia, he establishes a connection between the Teutonic Order’s expansionist rule in the Middle Ages and the National Socialist regime’s occupation policy. Together with many other political drawings by Szyk, the entire series was published in his book Ink and Blood in 1946.
Genocide and Resistance
As one of only a few artists, Szyk was already addressing the genocide of the European Jews during the war years 1939-1945. Published in newspapers and periodicals, his drawings again and again confronted the American public with the Holocaust. The artist explicitly criticized the refusal of Great Britain and the United States to take in additional Jewish refugees. Through work in political organizations, he attempted to move the United States to intervene more actively in support of the persecuted. Likewise, Szyk campaigned for the creation of a Jewish army, which was to fight alongside the Allies against the Axis. Given the ever higher numbers of victims, his works increasingly addressed Jewish armed resistance against their persecution and systematical extermination. The focus of his attention was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943, which Szyk placed in the tradition of the Jewish uprisings against foreign rule.
Between 1945 and 1948, Szyk created a series of nine visual national histories dedicated to, among others, his homeland of Poland and the Allied states. The detailed drawings were created to serve as decorative frontispieces for stamp albums from the individual countries. The artist grouped paradigmatic events and personalities, both past and present, around the respective national symbols.The Star of David stands at the center of this image—published in 1949—as symbol of the Zionist movement as well as of the state of Israel, which had been founded the year before. The twelve golden emblems on the columns refer to the tribes of the biblical Israel; the soldier and the farmer personify the Zionist ideal types of the “new Jews”; and the oranges and grapes symbolize the land’s fertility.
Epilogue
Szyk’s artistic work during the last years of his life was defined by two political themes. For one thing, he supported the Zionist movement in its goal of founding a Jewish state. The artist had already during the war campaigned for an increased Jewish immigration to the British mandate of Palestine. The proclamation of the state of Israel in May 1948 was the fulfillment of a long-held dream for the steadfast Zionist. For another thing, he portrayed his adopted homeland of the United States as the ideal of a society based on liberty and democracy. Even before immigrating in 1940, the artist had created works on the events and personages surrounding the War of Independence. He saw parallels between the American pursuit of national sovereignty and the Polish nation’s desire for freedom. Compelling works, however, also pointed out threats to democracy, such as the discrimination against African Americans or the excessive anticommunism of the McCarthy era.
Curators: Katja Widmann, Johannes Zechner
http://www.dhm.de/ausstellungen/arthur-szyk/index.html
Arthur Szyk (1894–1951) was one of the most memorable political caricaturists and illustrators during World War II. With his artist’s pencil he fought against the National Socialist regime and its Axis partners. His pieces appeared in highcirculation American magazines and daily newspapers. With his drawings and the active involvement in relief organizations, he sought ceaselessly to direct the public’s attention to the mass murder of the European Jews. The First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt referred to him as a “one-man army”. The exhibition provides a representative cross section of Szyk’s oeuvre for the first time in Germany, focusing in particular on his political drawings.
Art and PoliticsSzyk grew up as the child of Jewish parents in the Russian-occupied part of Poland. His Jewish-Polish origin inspired a particular sensibility to societal prejudices and political discrimination. He formed a desire to use art for affecting society. During his art studies in Paris, he began to explore its modern trends. Rejecting abstraction, he saw medieval book illuminations and Renaissance prints as his role models. With the precision of a master craftsman, Szyk worked in a traditional and broadly understandable pictorial language to convey relevant messages. Szyk saw himself as a political artist. In the beginning, he mainly worked as an illustrator of books and historical texts. Many of his works dealt with the Jews’ situation in the European societies and the values of democracy and freedom.
The artist embellished their armor not only with their order’s cross, but also with swastikas and skulls. Through the combination of these insignia, he establishes a connection between the Teutonic Order’s expansionist rule in the Middle Ages and the National Socialist regime’s occupation policy. Together with many other political drawings by Szyk, the entire series was published in his book Ink and Blood in 1946.
Genocide and ResistanceAs one of only a few artists, Szyk was already addressing the genocide of the European Jews during the war years 1939-1945. Published in newspapers and periodicals, his drawings again and again confronted the American public with the Holocaust. The artist explicitly criticized the refusal of Great Britain and the United States to take in additional Jewish refugees. Through work in political organizations, he attempted to move the United States to intervene more actively in support of the persecuted. Likewise, Szyk campaigned for the creation of a Jewish army, which was to fight alongside the Allies against the Axis. Given the ever higher numbers of victims, his works increasingly addressed Jewish armed resistance against their persecution and systematical extermination. The focus of his attention was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943, which Szyk placed in the tradition of the Jewish uprisings against foreign rule.
Between 1945 and 1948, Szyk created a series of nine visual national histories dedicated to, among others, his homeland of Poland and the Allied states. The detailed drawings were created to serve as decorative frontispieces for stamp albums from the individual countries. The artist grouped paradigmatic events and personalities, both past and present, around the respective national symbols.The Star of David stands at the center of this image—published in 1949—as symbol of the Zionist movement as well as of the state of Israel, which had been founded the year before. The twelve golden emblems on the columns refer to the tribes of the biblical Israel; the soldier and the farmer personify the Zionist ideal types of the “new Jews”; and the oranges and grapes symbolize the land’s fertility.
EpilogueSzyk’s artistic work during the last years of his life was defined by two political themes. For one thing, he supported the Zionist movement in its goal of founding a Jewish state. The artist had already during the war campaigned for an increased Jewish immigration to the British mandate of Palestine. The proclamation of the state of Israel in May 1948 was the fulfillment of a long-held dream for the steadfast Zionist. For another thing, he portrayed his adopted homeland of the United States as the ideal of a society based on liberty and democracy. Even before immigrating in 1940, the artist had created works on the events and personages surrounding the War of Independence. He saw parallels between the American pursuit of national sovereignty and the Polish nation’s desire for freedom. Compelling works, however, also pointed out threats to democracy, such as the discrimination against African Americans or the excessive anticommunism of the McCarthy era.
