Shtetl. Mayn Chorever Heym, a Gedeknish [“My Destroyed Home. A Memorial”]

RYBACK, ISSACHAR BER.

Schwellen Verlag

Berlin

1923

30 tinted and black-and-white lithographs (including title) numbered III-XXXI, All complete, WITH INDEX-CARD LAID-IN AT END (missing from most copies)

Jüdische Lebenswelten Katalog, Berlin (1991) no. 7/25 (illustrated)

Following the retreat of Ukranian Nationalist forces from 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 the artist’s father was killed. This profound series of lithographs portrays the ravaged Shtetl and expresses Ryback’s grief for a world he abandoned and was 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); C. Roth, Jewish Art col.803