REVIVING THE ARTIST WHO FOUGHT HITLER : MY LIFE WITH ARTHUR SZYK
By
Irvin Ungar
University of Texas Press. 350 pages. $45.
ISBN 978-1-4773-3302-0
Reviewed by Jim Burns
It’s
easy for artists to slip from sight, even when during their lifetime they
received a fair amount of recognition. Arthur Szyk might be a good example of
someone whose work was widely seen but who, when he died in 1951, seems to have
almost disappeared from public view and from art history. His death, unlike that
of other artists, didn’t immediately raise the value of his works. There were no
retrospective exhibitions or books celebrating his contribution to American art.
Were
there reasons for Szyk’s slide into obscurity? Irvin Ungar refers to the
changing tastes of the 1950s, and in particular the art establishment’s
near-surrender to abstraction, especially as represented by the abstract
expressionists. I’m not sure it’s a satisfactory explanation. As with an artist
like Norman Rockwell, there was always a prejudice against Szyk because much of
his best-known and popular work when he was alive and active was viewed as
illustration rather than art. When Rockwell was, during the years of the Second
World War, designing covers for the Saturday Evening Post, Szyk was
employed to do something similar for Collier’s magazine. It wasn’t quite
as widely read as the Saturday Evening Post, but it still had a healthy
circulation. But Rockwell easily switched back to civilian subjects when the war
ended and carried on working through the 1950s, whereas Szyk, once he’d moved
away from wartime propaganda, often focused on aspects of Jewish life and
beliefs. And he died in 1951, not long after he’d fallen foul of Senator Joseph
McCarthy’s false allegations.
Who was
Arthur Szyk (pronounced “Shick”, according to Ungar). He was born into an “upper
middle-class business family” in 1894 in Lódź, Poland, then part of the Russian
Empire. He showed signs of an interest in drawing from an early age, and in 1910
went to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie Julian. Among his classmates
were Diego Rivera, Thomas Hart Benton, and Jacques Lipchitz, though Ungar writes
that Szyk, in a three year period, only attended classes fourteen times,
preferring instead to spend his days at the Musée de Cluny, the Louvre, and the
Bibliothèque Nationale: “While a ‘part-time’ student in France, Szyk would send
caricatures, criticising the ills of society, back to his Polish hometown, where
a Lódź satirical newspaper, Śmiech, published his social commentaries on
its covers”.
When
Szyk returned to Lódź in 1913 he collaborated with the poet Julian Tuwim, “doing
costume designs for the cabaret Bi-Ba-Bo at the Hotel Savoy (made famous by
Joseph Roth’s 1914 novel) and, later illustrating Tuwim’s book Rewlucja w
Niemczech (Revolution in Germany) which satirised and mocked the
decadence of Germany and its influence on Polish society. Szyk also met “the
beautiful young actress Julia Likierman, who became his wife, lifetime supporter
and companion, and mother of his two children”.
Ungar
says that in 1914, prior to his meeting Julian and Julia, Szyk “was conscripted
into the Russian Army and fought in the World War 1 Battle of
Lódź against the Germans. Following the battle he left the Tsarist army;
staying in Lódź he returned to his drawing”. He produced sketches of Tsar
Nicholas II and the German military commander on the Eastern Front, Paul Von
Hindenberg. Nicholas was portrayed in an unflattering light, whereas Hindenberg
was treated more respectfully, probably because German troops were present in
Lódź and Szyk wanted an assurance that they would not loot his father’s mill.
Ungar mentions that he once acquired a set of four postcards with Szyk’s
“illustrations of Russian soldiers in military garb”.
After
the First World War ended Poland became an independent country, a change that
brought it into conflict with the newly-established Soviet Union. When the
Bolshevik armies attempted to push their way through Poland to link up with
communists in Germany, they were met with fierce resistance from the Poles. Szyk
joined the Polish army and was appointed the “artistic director of propaganda
for Poland as part of the Lódź District Corps”. It’s difficult to know what
Szyk’s work was like, though Ungar says he once owned six posters with slogans
proclaiming “Whoever is healthy and strong let him go into the army” and “For
Poland the Fatherland” which showed
soldiers, “some bloodied, others determined, Szyk’s details always stirring and
steering the emotions”.
Szyk
and his wife moved to Paris in 1921 and lived there until 1933, which means he
was present when the city was the centre of artistic activity. Picasso was a key
figure among the painters, Surrealism was creating an impact, and numerous other
artists, like Chaim Soutine and Jules Pascin, were making their mark. But you
won’t find references to Szyk in Bernard Dorival’s The School of Paris,
for example, a book that provides a useful guide to painters, many of them
Jewish, active in Paris from 1900 to 1939. Nor is he mentioned in Stanley
Meisler’s Shocking Paris or Marevna’s Life with the Painters of La
Ruche, with its bohemian flavour. Szyk’s work, and his lifestyle, would
probably not have fitted in with much of what was happening at the time, though
a 1926 portrait of his wife, Julia, shows that he was alert to modern trends.
Ungar
says that Szyk had four solo exhibitions in Paris and that “the New York-based
manufacturer Harry Glemby…..purchased virtually everything that Szyk displayed
in the gallery exhibitions…..As a by-product of this, numerous Szyk artworks
made their way to the United States”. It’s fascinating to learn that Szyk seems
to have been held in high regard by the French authorities, being given various
awards because of his “distinguished service in culture and education”.
At one point he was asked to be “an ambassador of goodwill to the people
of Morocco”, and paint a portrait of the Pasha of Marrakesh. Ungar’s book isn’t
a biography of Szyk, so only sketchy details of his life are provided. Among his
other activities, he illustrated books, all of them with a Jewish connection :
“The range of styles in these books, within such a short three year period is
staggering – from oriental style miniatures and Persian illumination, to
Dali-esque surrealism, humorous
pen-and-ink caricatures, to art-nouveau”.
Szyk
had a seven-month stay in the United States in the early-Thirties, and in 1934
returned to Poland. It wasn’t a good time to be there, with fascism on the rise
and more evidence of anti-semitism in Poland. In 1937 he travelled to London,
accompanied by his wife and daughter. He had been working on a visual
representation of the Haggadah, the classic story of the flight of the Jews from
Egypt. It was published in England in 1940 in an edition of “250 copies on
parchment. At $500 apiece, it was the most expensive new book in the world.”
Ungar tells us that “The Times of London hailed The Haggadah
as ‘worthy to be placed among the most beautiful of books that the hand of
man has produced’ “. While Szyk was in London, he “stepped up his anti-Nazi,
anti-Hitler, anti-Stalin art, particularly for magazines…….Through his political
caricatures and cartoons, Szyk used pen and ink to satirise and attack the
enemy”. There was an exhibition of “his war caricatures at the fashionable New
Bond Street address of the Fine Art Society……focusing on the brutality of the
Germans and Russians, the suffering of the Jews, and the bravery of The Poles”.
Some of the artwork in the exhibition was included in Szyk’s book, The New
Order, published in America in 1941.
A move
to Canada in 1940 was followed quickly by his entrance into the United States,
where he was, for a time at least, to attract the attention of a wide audience.
This was largely due to the drawings he contributed to Collier’s
magazine. While Norman Rockwell was coming up with illustrations for the front
covers of the Saturday Evening Post, Szyk provided them for Collier’s,
though with a difference. Rockwell largely limited his output to the home front,
and his pictures followed a social realism line, albeit some might say with a
too-rosy conception of wartime conditions. Szyk, on the other hand, used satire
to not only portray how soldiers slogged their way through adverse conditions,
but also how their situation often highlighted inconsistencies (segregation in
the American armed forces) in their lives. One drawing shows a white soldier
asking a black soldier, “And what would you do with Hitler”, to which the black
soldier replies, “I would have made him
a Negro and dropped him somewhere in the U.S.A.”. Ungar records that Szyk’s
views were “marked by a fierce independence of thought and of action, so much so
that no government, no military, no people, no organisation that he served could
ever completely claim him as their own”.
It’s
useful to look at how Rockwell and Szyk responded to President Roosevelt’s
speech in which he talked about the four freedoms the anti-fascist forces were
fighting for – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want,
freedom from fear. Rockwell’s paintings were firmly set in a contemporary
context, whereas Szyk chose to look back to a medieval period, perhaps to show
how freedom was a perennial struggle and not just about what was happening in
the 1940s.
He
continued to comment on political and other matters in the years following the
end of the Second World War. He was a passionate Zionist and attacked British
policies with regard to the founding of a Jewish state, and he opposed
colonialism. A cartoon called “Dutch Christmas in Indonesia” shows two soldiers
trampling on a local. As a professional illustrator he designed books, but he
additionally worked on a commission for “a series of works titled The Visual
History of Nations, a series of ten artworks, and in 1948, Declaration of
Independence of Israel, “a magnificent scroll with all the dreams of his
youth”. And there were “three magnificent works of art : Bill of Rights, Four
Freedoms Prayer, and Declaration of Independence of the United States-
all of which are now housed at the Library of Congress”.
In
1949, “Szyk was officially declared a ‘subversive’ by Senator Joseph McCarthy”,
probably because during the war years he had, like so many people in Hollywood
and other areas of activity, toned down his criticism of Stalin and Russia. They
were, after all, allies of America for a time. But using this argument to
justify wartime sympathetic treatment of Russia was not accepted by McCarthy and
members of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). It may also have
been the case that some of Szyk’s criticisms of aspects of American society were
still remembered by racists whose hatreds covered Jews as well as Blacks. Szyk
was never called to testify before HUAC, but Ungar is of the opinion that “the
threat by the American government to take away Szyk’s freedom certainly led
indirectly, if not directly, to his death” in September 1951.
I’ve
spent some time outlining Szyk’s life and art (aspects of it, at least) in order
to draw attention to him. But Ungar’s book is as much about himself, and his
passion for the artist’s work, as it is about Szyk. Ungar became interested,
even obsessed, with Szyk when he became aware of his work in the 1960s. It was
the time of the Vietnam War, which Ungar managed to avoid being involved in when
he trained to be a rabbi. He was successful in that role for several years
before switching to the antiquarian book trade and tracking down everything by
and about Szyk he could lay his hands on. His account, with numerous other
dealers and collectors appearing, can be a little overwhelming at times, as
items come to light, accumulate in value, and are passed around. Ungar’s
commitment to reviving interest in Szyk is never in any doubt. There are stories
of exhibitions, interviews, occasional clashes of personalities, and journeys to
spread the word about him. Szyk was an artist who went out of fashion for a
while. And, in the 1950s, it may have been that anyone speaking positively about
him risked being described, like
Szyk, as “subversive”. By the time the mood in America had changed, and the
Sixties were opening up, he might well have remained unknown had it not been for
Irvin Ungar and his belief in Szyk’s work. His book is well-produced, has
illustrations and a bibliography.