Traces of a Jewish Artist

The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit

Kerry Wallach (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

312 Seiten

2024
Pennsylvania State University Press (Verlag)
978-0-271-09559-2 (ISBN)

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Graphic artist, illustrator, painter, and cartoonist Rahel Szalit (1888–1942) was among the best-known Jewish women artists in Weimar Berlin. But after she was arrested by the French police and then murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz, she was all but lost to history, and most of her paintings have been destroyed or gone missing. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, this biography recovers Szalit’s life and presents a stunning collection of her art.

Szalit was a sought-after artist. Highly regarded by art historians and critics of her day, she made a name for herself with soulful, sometimes humorous illustrations of Jewish and world literature by Sholem Aleichem, Heinrich Heine, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and others. She published her work in the mainstream German and Jewish press, and she ran in artists’ and queer circles in Weimar Berlin and in 1930s Paris. Szalit’s fascinating life demonstrates how women artists gained access to Jewish and avant-garde movements by experimenting with different media and genres.

This engaging and deeply moving biography explores the life, work, and cultural contexts of an exceptional Jewish woman artist. Complementing studies such as Michael Brenner’s The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, this book brings Rahel Szalit into the larger conversation about Jewish artists, Expressionism, and modern art.

Kerry Wallach is Associate Professor and Chair of German Studies and an affiliate of the Jewish Studies Program at Gettysburg College. She is the author of Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 From the Shtetl to the City (1888–1919)

1. The Markus Family in Eastern Europe

2. Munich, War, and Marriage

3. Berlin Expressionist Circles

Part 2 Inflation- Era Illustrations (1920–1923)

4. Classic World Literature

5. Grotesque Yiddish Figures

6. “Hebrew Melodies

Part 3 The Wild Sides of Weimar (1924–1933)

7. Newspaper Artist

8. Sexuality and the Bible

9. The Jewish K.the Kollwitz

Part 4 Exile in Paris (1933–1942)

10. From Berlin to the School of Paris

11. Holocaust Fates

Epilogue: Remembering Rahel Szalit

Chronology

Appendix 1: Rahel Szalit’s Known Exhibitions and Works

Appendix 2: Translations of Short Stories by Rahel Szalit

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	28.02.2024
Reihe/Serie	Dimyonot
Zusatzinfo	1 Maps; 8 Halftones, color; 79 Halftones, black and white
Verlagsort	University Park
Sprache	englisch
Maße	178 x 254 mm
Gewicht	771 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
	Kunst / Musik / Theater
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Judentum
ISBN-10	0-271-09559-8 / 0271095598
ISBN-13	978-0-271-09559-2 / 9780271095592
Zustand	Neuware