Physical Description
Color lithograph printed on off-white paper with a white, rectangular central panel containing a blue Star of David with grapes in the center, a gold crown and menorah design above, and Hebrew characters and printed text below. At the top center, above the panel, are 3 elaborately dressed figures (Hur, Moses, Aaron) huddled together. Moses, in the center, has his arms around the shoulders of the others, his hands and index fingers pointing outward. To their right and left, inset into squares, are portraits of King Solomon and King David, both depicted with dark hair and golden crowns. At the bottom center are the Ten Commandment tablets flanked by gold lions with an Israeli soldier on the left holding a rifle and a pioneer man on the right holding a shovel. On the right and left center are portraits of men inset in blue medallions: Ezekiel is depicted on the right with a long white beard holding a staff, while Bar-Kokhba is depicted on the left holding a sword and shield. Above and below both medallions are white Stars of David superimposed with blue Hebrew characters and set into floral panels. The figures are divided by four elaborate gold columns with a leaf design, two on each side of the central white panel. Throughout the image are twelve gold symbols representing the twelve tribes of Israel. The image is bordered by an intricate floral motif interspersed with yellow Stars of David. The artist’s signature is printed in pink ink below the image on the right. The left margin of the print is wider than the right. There are five lines of printed text on the back.
Dimensions
overall : 11.500 x 9.875 in. (29.21 x 25.083 cm.)
Materials
overall : paper, ink
Markings
Back, lower left, printed, black ink: Title Page for the Plate of Israel / Artist-Arthur Szyk, New York / Published by K. Bileski, Station B, Winnipeg, Canada / Lithographed in the U.S.A. by Herman Jaffe, Printer, New York, U.S.A. / Copyright 1949.
Signature
Front, bottom right, printed, pink ink: ARTHUR SZYK, NEW CANAAN, 1948
Contributor
Artist:
Arthur Szyk
Printer:
Herman Jaffe
Publisher:
Kasimir Bileski
Biography
Arthur Szyk was born on June 16, 1894, to Jewish parents, Solomon and Eugenia Szyk in Łódź, Poland, which at the time was part of the Russian Empire. He had his first public art exhibition at age fifteen, and then went to Paris, France, for formal art training at the Academie Julian. He visited Palestine in 1914 with a group of Polish-Jewish artists and studied Muslim art. Upon his return, he was conscripted into the Russian Army and served about six months in World War I. He married Julia Liekerman in 1916, and they had a son, George, in 1917. In 1918, Poland regained independence, but continued to fight a series of regional wars to secure its boundaries. Between 1919 and 1920, during Poland's war against the Soviet Bolsheviks, Syzk served as a cavalry officer and artistic director of the Department of Propaganda for the Polish army regiment quartered in Łódź.
In 1921, he and his family moved to Paris where his daughter, Alexandra was born the following year. He was well known for his magnificent illuminations and book illustrations, in a style reminiscent of Persian miniatures. He worked on several significant projects in France, including illustrating the Statute of Kalisz and the Haggadah, and a series of watercolors on the American Revolutionary War. The great themes of his most admired work, democracy and Judaism, were already well established, earning him both fame and significant commissions. In 1934, Szyk traveled to the United States for exhibitions of his work and to receive the George Washington Bicentennial Medal, awarded by the U.S. Congress. He resided in England from 1937-1940 to supervise the publication of Haggadah. In 1939, following Germany's invasion of Poland, he focused on producing anti-Nazi editorial cartoons published in many Western newspapers and magazines.
In late 1940, he immigrated to the United States with his family. He became a leading anti-Fascist political caricaturist as well as an advocate for Jewish rescue. His experience of the Holocaust was personal: in 1943, his 70 year old mother, Eugenia, and her Polish companion were deported from the Łódź ghetto and murdered in Majdanek concentration camp. In addition to his widely published satirical art, Szyk devoted a great deal of time and energy to the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, and to promoting the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine. Szyk received his US citizenship in 1948. In 1951, he was investigated by the United States House Un-American Activities Committee as a suspected Communist. His son, speaking on his behalf, declared his non-affiliation with any Communist organization. That same year, on September 13, Szyk died at 57 of a heart attack.
