Two Revelers.

RYBACK, ISSACHAR BER.

(Russian-Ukrainian, 1897-1935)

Watercolor on paper. Signed lower right. Framed.

Ryback was born in Yelisavetgrad, Ukraine (today, Kirovohrad). He attended the Art Academy in Kiev from 1911-16 and was an important contributor to the Kiev art scene until 1921 when he moved to Berlin to participate in the Secession exhibit there. In 1926 he settled in Paris, where he later died on the eve of a major retrospective exhibition of his work organized by the famed Wildenstein Gallery. Ryback was a significant member of the Russian-Jewish modernist movement that included Altman, Aronson, Chagall and Lissitsky, all of whom were seeking 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.