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Metadata
Artist |
Szalit-Marcus, Rahel |
Object Name |
Lithograph |
Title |
The Street Sneezes, from Motl, Peysi the Cantor's Son |
Date |
1922 |
Place of Origin |
Berlin, Germany |
Medium |
Lithograph |
Dimensions |
13 x 11 1/2 in. (33 x 29.2 cm) |
Accession Number |
09.01.11 |
Credit line |
Gift of Sigmund R. Balka |
About This Work |
Rahel Szalit-Marcus grew up in Lodz and studied art in Munich in 1911. She moved to Berlin in 1916 and became a member of the radical Novembergruppe, an association of artists that emerged in 1918 during the revolutionary period following the end of World Wart I. In the 1920s, she illustrated works by Sholem Aleichem, Martin Buber, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Heinrich Heine, Mendele Moykher Sforim, and Israel Zangwill. Sholem Aleichem's novel is a first-person narrative that begins with nine-year-old Motl, a member of a Jewish family in the fictional village Kasrilevke. Motl's father, the village's cantor, has died, and his older, married brother Elyahu tries to help the family through a series of failed get-rich-quick schemes with Motl as his accomplice. The story describes the daily life of his family and friends-their hardships, poverty and fears that motivate Motl to immigrate to the United States. Later, after the family has left, Kasrilevke's inhabitants are the target of a pogrom and many more Jews from the village also immigrate. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Szalit-Marcus fled to France, but was interned at Drancy and deported to Auschwitz where she was murdered in 1942. Most of her paintings and watercolors left behind in her studio were destroyed, though many of her prints survive. Impressions of Eastern Europe: Prints from the Permanent Collection, 2020, exhibition label |