Rakowsky, Leonti. The Prodigal Devil [short story]. Text in Cyrillic

(YUDOVIN, SOLOMON).

Leningrad

1931

With 6 full-page woodcut illustrations of shtetl life, historiated woodcut opening letters and decorative tailpieces by YUDOVIN. Signed and inscribed by Yudovin to his brother Karl, dated October 1931 on title

Yudovin was born to a family of artisans in the village of Beshenkovichi near Vitebsk and received his early artistic training from Jehuda Pen, Marc Chagall’s teacher. Unlike his contemporaries, Yudovin pursued Jewish themes for the greater part of his artistic career. In common with many, he studied Jewish folk iconography and traditional decorative motifs. Yudovin’s shtetl depictions are charmingly expressive. They tell the story of a poor, drab and joyless existence and are populated by elderly people bent by their struggle for survival. His city depictions are based on the town of Vitebsk. Despite the avant-garde ideas that flooded the Russian Jewish artistic fraternity at the time, Yudovin remained a figurative artist throughout his career. See R. Apter-Gabriel, The Jewish Art of Solomon Yudovin (1991) p. v-viii