Kurz, Aharon. Plakaten ["Posters"]

AUCTION 43 | Thursday, April 02nd, 2009 at 1:00
Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Graphic & Ceremonial Art

Back to Catalogue Download Catalogue

Lot 180
Lozowick, Louis

Kurz, Aharon. Plakaten ["Posters"]

Yiddish. Front cover with modernistic design by avant-garde artist Louis Lozowick pp. 79, (1). Uncut. Red and black illustrated wrappers, soiled. Folio Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur (1981) Vol.VIII, col.177

New York: Pinsky-Mazal Press 1927

Est: $300 - $500
PRICE REALIZED $250
Louis Lozowick (1892-1973) was born in Ludvinovka, a hamlet in the Kiev district of Russia and in 1906, the fourteen-year old arrived at Ellis Island, the entry point to New York City. He was immediately struck by the "skyscrapers which later formed the subject of so many of my pictures." Lozowick spent the years 1920-1924 in Europe. In Paris, the young artist was attracted to the school of Cubists, but especially to the Machine Elements of Fernand Léger. Later in Berlin, he was accepted into the circle of Russian Constructivists and exhibited along with Lissitsky in Düsseldorf in 1922. The design on the cover of this collection of Yiddish poems, is representative of Lozowick's early style (1919-1929) - semi-abstract, Cubist, or occasionally Futurist. See J. Flint, The Prints of Louis Lozowick: A Catalogue Raisonné (1982), pp. 12-17. The Russian-born poet Aharon Kurz (1891-1964) writes of contemporary American life: "Union Square," "Passaic," "Fifth Avenue," and the trial of "Saco-Venzetti."