The work of the prolific, eclectic Polish-Jewish artist and illustrator makes a long-awaited return.
Through the stroke of a brush, artists have the power to promote understanding and influence public opinion. In an age when images and text bombard us from every corner, we too often devalue the cultural and political importance of art and its ability to bring people together.
— The University of California, Berkeley, received its biggest art grant ever to acquire the world’s largest collection by the Jewish-Polish artist Arthur Szyk and display it in a public institution for the first time. The $10.1 million gift from the Taube Philanthropies will be used to acquire 450 artworks — including paintings, drawings and sketches — according to a statement. The…
The University of California, Berkeley’s Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life is about to become home to a major collection of the works and personal papers of Arthur Szyk, thanks to a gift from the Bay Area-based Taube Philanthropies.
You might recognize the the Szyk Haggadah — it’s been used at thousands of Seders since the 1930’s. Now, the stunning paintings are on display.
To see the splendid new exhibit of caricatures and miniature drawings by Polish-born Jewish illustrator Arthur Szyk (1894-1951), on view until March 27 at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, you first have to walk through several galleries of religious paintings devoted to Christian saints, Madonnas with child, and Christ on the cross. Szyk’s pictures also introduce religious themes, but his portraits of martyrs and Jewish heroes are often less reverential than those in the museum’s adjoining rooms.
I spent a couple of informative hours last Tuesday evening at “Methods of a Master Illuminator,” a new exhibit of Arthur Szyk’s art showing at the Broome Street Gallery through April 25. Irv Ungar, a dealer and foremost expert on Szyk’s work, and co-curator Allison Chang, have assembled an impressive collection of original art, prints, bound books, and some lesser known pencil sketches, that readily satisfy both the already initiated and the not-yet-initiated, who may have heard of, but never explored up-close, the craft of a ‘master illuminator.’