Yidisher Folks-Ornament. Part One (all published). Executed together with M. Malkin

YUDOVIN, SOLOMON.

Vitebsker Y.L. Peretz Geselschaft

Vitebsk

1920

One of 100 copies (?) Complete set of 26 linolium cut illustration of Jewish tombstones. (Numbered 1-28; nos. 13 and 20 never issued). Two text leaves

Museum of Modern Art Catalogue, The Russian Avant-Garde Book (2002), number 299; Israel Museum Catalogue, Tradition and Revolution no.170 i-ixxx (illustrated); C. Shmeruk, Jewish Publications in the Soviet Union 1917-1960 [Hebrew] (1961) no.1066 (illustrated)

Solomon 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. Despite the avant-garde ideas that flooded the Russian Jewish artistic fraternity at the time, Yudovin remained a figurative artist throughout his career The present work, Yidisher Folks-Ornament was published in tandem with an exhibition of Jewish folk art organized by Yudovin, held at the Y.L. Peretz Society, Vitebsk .“As far as we know, the linocuts are the earliest prints among the surviving body of Yudovin’s works. Executed on different types of paper - flimsy sheets alternating with a grayish cardboard - they bear witness to the austerity of the early post-Revolution years.” See R. Apter-Gabriel, The Jewish Art of Solomon Yudovin (1991) p.viii. “The last published echo of the Jewish Ethnographic Society expeditions.” Tradition and Revolution p.33