Bookvica

[ISSACHAR BER RYBACK] Yiśśakhar Ber Ribak: zayn lebn un shafn [i.e. Issachar ber Ryback. His Life and Creativity]

Item #2349

Paris, 1937. 94, [2], [4] pp., 32 ills. 33x25,5 cm. In original cloth with gilt lettering and decorated frame. Very good condition.

Limited edition published posthumously. Copy #163. The book includes 32 reproductions of Ryback’s selected works devoted to everyday life of Jewish shtetls and his portrait. They are added with articles written by the artist’s widow, also Marc Chagall, Arnold Zweig, Mane Katz and others.

Issachar Ber (Zahar) Ryback (1897–1935) was a Jewish artist who gained fame for his work in Ukraine, early Soviet Russia and France. Born in Elisavetgrad, in 1911-1916 he studied at the Kyiv Art College and the studio of A. Murashko, where famous painters and sculptors came from: Nisson Shifrin, Baruch Aronson, Alexander Tyshler, Solomon Nikritin, Mark Epstein, Baruch Goldfine. Together with El Lissitzky, Ryback was commissioned to observe and copy paintings of wooden synagogues, carved tombstones in Jewish cemeteries, and objects of national crafts. Since then, Ryback’s works were indissolubly tied with national culture. In the late 1910s, he also mastered radical cubofuturism at the studios of Alexandra Exter and Alexander Bogomazov.

In 1918–1919 he taught at the Jewish Cultural League in Kyiv – some years later, he contributed to its Kaunas branch. In 1921 Ryback went to Berlin, where he joined the expressionist art association 'Novembergruppe' [the November group], participated in its exhibitions, as well as in exhibitions of the Berlin Secession. Along with Natan Altman, Joseph Chaikov and other artists, Ryback collaborated with Jewish writers in Berlin. Commissioned by Jewish publishing houses, he designed several children's books in Yiddish, creating illustrations in the neo-primitivist style using symbols and motifs of Jewish folk art. In 1925, he returned to Moscow, where he was engaged in theatrical and decorative works. In 1926 Ryback emigrated to France. His personal exhibitions are held in Paris, Hague, Rotterdam, Brussels and Antwerp.

Worldcat shows copies located in Stanford, Yale, Michigan, Duke, Brandeis, Harvard Universities, Yivo and Spertus Institutes, Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union and Charleston Colleges and the MET.

Price: $2,250.00