Moshé Raviv-Vorobeichic (pseud. “Moi Ver.”) “Ein Ghetto im Osten Wilna.” Collection of fourteen avant-garde photographs from the artist’s personal archive.

(PHOTOGRAPHY).

circa

1931

Each photograph with Vorobeichic’s studio hand-stamp on verso.

Lithuanian-born photographer Moshé Raviv-Vorobeichic (1904-96) trained at the Bauhaus and after studying at the École de Photo Ciné in Paris, returned to visit his family and photograph life in the Jewish community of Vilnius. The result was the celebrated 1931 portfolio: Ein Ghetto im Osten Wilna [“The Ghetto Lane in Vilna.”] These influential photographic images and photocollages of Lithuanian Jews were proclaimed by the Vilna historian Lazer Ran as “The most important pictorial source of old Vilna ghetto streets” (see L. Ran, Jerusalem of Lithuania, Vol. III (1974) p.33). Later in Parr & Badger’s The Photobook: A History (2004), they noted (p. 130) that Vorobeichic “pushed the envelope of the documentary form” with his inventive photo-montages. Adopting Zionism in 1934 Vorobeichic migrated to Palestine where he changed his name to “Raviv.” Along with Reuven Rubin he co-founded the Artists’ Colony of Safed. Provenance: Galerie Bassenge, Berlin.