(RYBACK, ISAACHAR BAER).

AUCTION 43 | Thursday, April 02nd, 2009 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Hebrew Printed Books, Manuscripts, Graphic & Ceremonial Art

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Lot 206

(RYBACK, ISAACHAR BAER).

An archive relating to the life of the artist Issachar Ber Ryback and his wife Sonia. Most significantly the collection includes: Ryback’s photographs of scenes of Jewish life in the Kolkhozes (collective farm settlements) from the year 1925. (Total of c. 108 photographs). THESE HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT PHOTOGRAPHS HAVE NEVER BEEN PUBLISHED. The impact of this visit to the Ukraine and the scenes Ryback encountered there was evidenced the following year when Ryback published his work Oyf di Yiddisher Feld fun Ukraina / On the Jewish Fields of the Ukraine (Paris, 1926). * Personal effects and memorabilia of the artist, including photographs of Ryback, and press clippings of Ryback's exhibits in Brussels, The Hague, Paris, Rotterdam. * Photographs of Ryback's wife Sonia, her correspondence, her Polish passport issued in Vilna in 1921, and her Russian passport issued in Berlin in 1923 (both issued in the name of "Sophia Katzenelson"), and finally, her "Kethubah" or marriage contract, 22 Marcheshvan, 1924. Charlottenburg, Berlin. * Two drawings clearly by Ryback (though unsigned). Etc.

Est: $5,000 - $7,000

PRICE REALIZED $7,500

Issachar Ber Ryback (1897-1935) was born in Yelizavetgrad, Ukraine. He attended the Art Academy in Kiev from 1911-16. During this time, he participated with S. An-ski in an expedition financed by the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society that visited various Ukrainian shtetls, copying tombstones, photographing ancient synagogues and noting other Jewish artifacts of historical significance. Ryback was an important contributor to the Kiev art scene until 1921 when he moved to Berlin to participate in the Berlin Secession exhibit. Ryback spent the year of 1925 in the Soviet Union, travelling and sketching. In 1926 he settled in Paris, dying there on the eve of an important retrospective exhibition of his work organized by Wildenstein. Ryback - along with Lissitsky, Altman, Aronson and Chagall - participated in the Russian-Jewish modernist movement that sought to revitalize Jewish art during a period which saw the cultural efflorescence of Yiddish literature, music, theater, and art. See H. Kazovsky, The Artists of the Kultur Lige (Moscow, 2003) pp. 230-48; R. Apter-Gabriel, Tradition and Revolution: The Jewish Renaissance in Russian Avant-Garde Art 1912-1928 (IM Catalogue, 1987), p. 243