Shtetl. Mein Chorever Heim. A Gedekenish [“My Destroyed Home. A Remembrance”]

Following the retreat of Ukrainian Nationalist forces before the Russian Red Army in 1919, mass killings of Jews took place. One such pogrom broke out in Ryback’s birthplace, Yelizavetgrad (presently, Kirovograd), in which his father was killed. This profound series of lithographs portrays the ravaged Shtetl and expresses the artist’s grief for a world abandoned and now destroyed. See Israel Museum Catalogue, Tradition and Revolution: The Jewish Renaissance in Russian Avant-Garde Art 1912-1928 (1987) no.136 i-xxx (illustrated); Jüdische Lebenswelten Katalog, Berlin (1991) no.7/25 (illustrated)