SEPT 2013 - The Tam Institute for Jewish Studies | Emory University

SEPTEMBER 2013 - No. 94- EDITOR:- [email protected]
A Review of Works by Jewish Sculptors on Stamps:
Part II
Gene Eisen
Part I of the review describes works of Jewish sculptors on stamps from the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union (2013). Part
II looks at those Jewish sculptors who developed their skills in other areas in Europe, South America and the United States and
had their sculptures illustrated on stamps as well.
At the turn of the 20th century, Paris was the hub for aspiring young artists. The section known as Montparnasse on the Left
Bank of the Seine attracted many foreign artists who honed their skills there. A good number were Jews from Europe and
America (Landman, 1986). Included among them were Amedeo Modigliani, Chana Orloff and Ossip Zadkine.
Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was born in Livorno, Italy to cultivated Sephardic Jews. His love for art was stimulated when
his mother took him on a tour of several cities
with great art museums. He studies art in Micheli’s Art School in Florence from 1898-1902 where he painted landscapes, still
life, portraits and nudes. In 1905 he moved to Paris where he learned from great artists like Cezanne and Gauguin. During his
early years in Paris, Modigliani worked at a furious pace, constantly sketching. Although
Modigliani is often thought of as a painter, he was also a talented sculptor, mostly of
elongated female heads, like the bas relief shown in Figure 1 (Right). Several of Modigliani’s
sculptures were exhibited in the Salon d’Automne in 1912. By 1914 he had abandoned
sculpting and focused on painting because of the difficulty in acquiring materials because
of WWI and also because of Modigliani’s physical debilitation brought about by alcohol,
drugs and tuberculosis. His only exhibition during his lifetime was held in Paris in 1917 and
was of his nude paintings
Chana Orloff (1888-1968) was born in Tsara-Constaninovka, Ukraine. She immigrated to
Jaffa, Palestine in 1905, where she found a job as a cutter and seamstress. She then
journeyed to Paris
in 1910 to study
fashion design,
but chose art instead. She enrolled in sculpture
classes at the Académie Russe in Montparnasse. In
1913, she exhibited in the Salon d’Automne. Orloff’s
interest was the human face and graceful female
curves as illustrated in “Mother and Child” (1924)
(Figure 2-Left). In certain danger when the Nazis
invaded France, Orloff survived WWII in Switzerland.
In 1949, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art held an
exhibition of 77 of her sculptures. She returned often
to Israel to complete sculptures of David Ben-Gurion,
“The Hero Monument,” “The Motherhood
Monument” and “The Monument to Dov
Gruner” (1953) (Figure 2). In 1968, Orloff arrived in
Israel for the jubilee exhibit of her work, to be held
on the occasion of her 80th birthday, at the Tel Aviv
Museum of Art. Sadly, she was taken ill at the airport
and died soon afterward.
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Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967) was born Aronovich Tsadkin in Vitebsk,
Byelorussia (now Belarus). His father was Jewish and had converted
to Russian Orthodox. His non-Jewish mother was of Scottish ancestry. At the age of 16 he went to London to live with his mother’s
relatives. After attending art school in London, Zadkine settled in
Paris in 1910. There he became part of the new Cubist movement.
In 1919, he had his first exhibition in Belgium, where he continued
his successful career.
At the outbreak of WWII, he moved to the United States, but
returned to Paris in 1945. His most famous work was the large
memorial called “The Destroyed City” (1951-1953), representing a
man without a heart (Richter, 1974), which was inspired by his
impression after visiting Rotterdam after the war (Figure 3-Right).
Some of his other works are “Orpheus” (1956) and “Femme a
l’eventail”.
Otto Gutfreund (1889-1927) was born in Dvar Kralove, Bohemia. He showed an early interest in art
and attended the School of Creative Arts in Bechyne (1903-1906) and the College of Decorative Arts
in Prague (1906-1908). He then studied with Antoine Bourdelle at the Academie de la Grande
Chaumiere in Paris. During WWI he saw action as a member of the French Foreign Legion.
Afterward, he was imprisoned for an uncertain reason until the end of the war. In 1920, he returned
to Czechoslovakia to continue his career. Some of his works were “Don Quixote” (1911-12), “Head
with a Hat” (1913-1914), “Portrait of Artist’s Wife” (1923) and “Business” (Figure 4 on left).
His career was cut short when he drowned on June 2, 1927.
Boris Schatz (1867-1932) was born in Varniai, Lithuania.
He left his studies in a yeshiva to study art in Vilnius
(1882-1887) and Warsaw (1888-1890). In 1889 he
moved to Paris to study at the Académie Cormon. In
1895, Schatz accepted an invitation from the Prince of Bulgaria to become the
official court sculptor and establish the country’s Royal Academy of Art. But for
meeting Theodor Herzl in 1903, he might have remained in Bulgaria. The Zionist
leader likely influenced Schatz to move to Palestine. In 1905, at the Fifth Zionist
Congress, Schatz proposed developing a Jewish art school in Palestine, which was
eventually founded as the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem (Figure 5 on right). He
died unexpectedly in 1932 while on a fundraising trip in the U.S.
Idel Ianchelevici (1909-1994) was born in Leova, Romania. In 1928 he immigrated to Belgium. He studied sculpture at the
Académie des Beaux-Arts de la Ville in Liege, where he was awarded first prize in statuary art. He rapidly became recognized
as a talented artist and went on to exhibit in Brussels, Tel Aviv, Paris and Amsterdam. He went into hiding during WWII to
escape the Nazis. In 1945, his statue “l’Appel” (“The Call”) was completed (Figure 6). His monuments have been described as
powerful, as exemplified in “Conspiration” (“Conspiracy”) (1932), a piece inspired by the working class struggle, and
“National Monument to Political Prisoners” erected at Breendonk in 1954 (Figure 6). (Illustrations overleaf)
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Moisei Cogan (1819-1945) was born in Orhei, Bessarabia, which is now part of Moldova. He became a talented architect
and sculptor. Cogan participated in exhibitions at many museums, including the Art Gallery at Bremen, the Museum
Folkway of Essen and the State Museum of Halle. In 1910, he worked with Rodin and Aristede Maillol in Paris. He was
arrested by the Nazis and died in Auschwitz (Figure 7—below)
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Harald Salomon was born in Oslo, Norway in 1900, the son of Johanna (Eisenstein) and Simon Salomon.
The family moved to Copenhagen, Denmark when Harald was a child. There he trained as a sculptor
(Figure 8-Right). Afterward he studied the art of engraving medallions and coins. He became chief
director of the Danish Royal Mint in 1933, a post he held until his retirement in 1968, except for a period
during WWII. At that time, he and his family escaped from the Nazis by boat from Copenhagen to
Sweden, as did many other Jews. He and his family returned to Denmark when the Nazis were defeated
and the war ended. Salomon died in 1990 at the age of ninety.
Nathan Rapoport (1911-1987) was born in Warsaw, Poland. He began to study art in Warsaw and won a scholarship to
continue his studies in Italy and France. When the Nazis invaded Poland, he fled to the Soviet Union. The Soviets initially
welcomed him and provided an art studio and supplies, and then put him to work making statues of working class “heroes”
prior to the Soviet’s entry into the war. However, true to the nature of Soviet distrust of intellectuals and possibly antiSemitism, he was committed to forced labor. At the end of WWII, he returned to Poland where he studied at the Warsaw
Academy of Fine Arts. He was given the commission of sculpting a memorial for the “Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” (1948) in the
original ghetto. He faced somewhat of a dilemma since the mainstream of sculpting at the time was abstract art, yet
Rapoport felt the memorial had to represent a realistic picture of the courage of the Jewish people in the figures. The central
figure in the sculpture represents Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the uprising (Figure 9—below). The figure of the
fighter to the right is illustrated on the Israeli stamp (Figure 9-Below). A replica of Rapoport’s “Monument to the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising” was erected at Yad Vashem in Israel.
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Sandor Glid was born in1924 in Subotica, Yugoslavia. During WWII, he was in a forced labor camp for a time, and his family was
murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. Later he fought with Yugoslav partisans. After the war, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts
in Belgrade. His career began as a portrait sculptor (Figure 10—Below). Subsequently, he worked on monuments to
commemorate concentration camp victims. He was commissioned to prepare monuments at the former Nazi camps of
Mauthausen (1957) and Dachau (1969) (Figure 10) (Borodinsky, 2001). His memorial sculptures convey a powerful expression
of the sadness of the Holocaust. (Despotovic, 2013). Glid died in Belgrade in 1997.
Felicia Leirner (1904-1994) was born in Warsaw, Poland as Feiga Simcha Aichenbaum. She
immigrated to Brazil in 1927 with her parents and her husband, Isai Leirner. She only began to
study sculpture when she was in her forties. Her works include figures as well as abstract visual
structures (Friedman and Frost, 1983). By 1958, Leirner had abandoned figures and began to
work on a much larger scale, creating abstract pieces that the viewer could walk through. One of
her sculptures appears on a stamp of Brazil (Figure 11—Left) issued to commemorate the 10th
Biennial Art Exhibition in Sao Paulo. A museum devoted to her work has been established in Sao
Paulo.
Michael Milberger was born in 1923 in Warsaw, Poland. After studying art for several years, he decided
to concentrate his talents on sculpting. He soon became a well known and sought after sculptor whose
works are found in Poland, Russia and several other countries (Borodinsky, 2001). His sculptures include
busts of famous people of his time (Figure 12—Right). He died in Paris, France in 1997.
Oscar Nemon (1906-1985) was born
Oscar Neumann in Osjek, Croatia (Austria-Hungary). At an
early age, his artistic talents were apparent when he began
working with clay at a local brickworks. He lived in Brussels
from 1925 to1938 and studied at the Académie Royal des
Beaux Arts, where he won a gold medal for his sculpture. He
staged a one-man exhibition of his busts, which included
Sigmund Freud and Paul-Henri Spaak. Concerned about the
likelihood of war in Europe, he was forced to abandon over a
decade of work in progress in his studio and moved to England in 1939. Nemon made sculptures of many famous people
including members of the British Royal Family. He is well known for his series of more than a dozen public statues of Winston
Churchill (Figure 13–Above).
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Adolph Alexander Weinman (1870-1952) was born in Karlsruhe, Germany and came to the United States
with his parents when he was ten. He attended evening classes at Cooper Union College when he was
only 15. Later he studied at the Art Students League in New York. Weinman considered himself to be an
architectural sculptor, although he is best remembered as a medalist. He designed the “Walking Liberty”
half-dollar and the “Mercury” dime together with various medals of the United States Armed Services.
Examples of Weinman’s architectural sculptures can be found on the Wisconsin, Missouri and Louisiana
state capital buildings. A bust sculpted by Weinman of Benjamin Harrison, the President of the United
States was used in the Presidential stamp issue of 1938 (Figure 14-Right).
Jo Davidson (1883-1952) was born in New York City. He studied with H.H. MacNeil before moving to
Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1907. In 1911 he secured his first solo gallery show.
Davidson decided to specialize in realistic busts of individuals. He worked primarily in clay, while the final
products were cast in bronze, marble or terra-cotta. Davidson generally did not ask subjects to formally
pose for him. He just asked to observe and speak with them. His fame spread far and wide with
commissions of such luminaries as Charles Chaplin, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dwight David Eisenhower, Will
Rogers and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Figure 15-Left). (What a cast!) In 1947, the American Academy of
Arts and Letter hosted a retrospective of nearly 200 of his sculptures.
George Segal (1924-2000) was born in the Bronx, New York, son of a kosher butcher. From1941-1949, Segal studied art
education at several colleges: Pratt Institute, Rutgers University and New York University. Segal was one of the founders of the
Pop Art movement. He turned a chicken coop on his farm in New Brunswick, NJ into his studio. Segal pioneered the use of
plaster bandages designed for making orthopedic casts as a sculptural medium. Later, he started having the final form cast in
bronze. Segal’s art represents his version of social realism. The sculpture illustrating people waiting to cross the street, “Walk,
Don’t Walk” (1976), is a good example (Figure 16-Below). Two of his most striking works are “The Holocaust” (Figure 16Below) at San Francisco’s Palace of the Legion of Honor and “Gay Liberation” at Stanford University in California.
Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) was born Leah Berliansky to Jewish parents in the Russian Empire. In 1905, the family came to
the United States and settled in Rockland, Maine. After some struggle, her father became a successful realtor and lumber
merchant. Leah showed an interest in art at a young age. After graduation from high school, she met and married Bernard
Nevelson, and the couple moved to New York City, where she began to study art at the Art Students League. The birth of a
son in 1922 led to a domestic crisis because her husband wanted her to stay at home instead of studying. The couple
separated and eventually divorced. In 1931, she sent her son to live with her parents while she went to Europe for a year to
study art. Nevelson’s work was not recognized at first, and she had to accept assistance from her family and teach art to get
by financially (Slater and Slater, 1998). Nevelson began to concentrate on the use of wood in sculpture. In 1964, Nevelson
created “Homage to 6,000,000,” a memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust. She finally received international recognition
when she had her first one-woman retrospective in 1967. Several of her works are illustrated on United States
commemorative stamps (Figure 17-Below).
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Neil Collins, editor of the Encyclopedia of Art (20013), has compiled and selected a list of the greatest sculptors of the
Western world. Of the 28 greatest Modern Era sculptors he lists, five individuals are of Jewish ancestry: Jacob Epstein, Elie
Nadelman, Jacque Lipchitz, Ossip Zadkine and Naum Gabo. Of the 27 greatest sculptors of the Contemporary Era, three are
Jewish: Sol LeWitt, Glid Nandor and Louise Nevelson. (Personally, I believe that George Segal belongs on this list.) Thus about
15% of the greatest sculptors of the Western world, as judged by this art expert, were Jewish.
I have not found any works by Epstein, Nadelman, Lipchitz or LeWitt on stamps, although I may have overlooked some,
particularly in recent issues. No doubt, I have inadvertently omitted others Jewish sculptors that appear on stamps, and I
welcome my fin my review.ellow Judaica stamp collectors to add them, as well as other unlisted stamps of those sculptors I
have included
Bibliography
Borodinsky, Isaac, 2001 Judaica in Philately: an Annotated Checklist. Society of Israel Philatelists, Beachwood, OH.
Eisen, Gene, 2013. A review of works by Jewish sculptors on stamps: Part I.
Friedman, Don and Murray Frost, 1983. Felicia Leirner. Judaica Philatelic Journal 19 (1):2325-2376.
Landman, Silviu, 1986.The Circle of Montparnasse. Judaica Philatelic Journal 22 (1): 2705-2708.
Richter, John Henry, 1974. A monument for Rotterdam: Zadkine and his “Destroyed City.” Judaica Philatelic Journal 10 (4):
1361-1364.
Slater, E. and R. Slater, 1998. Great Jewish Women, Jonathan David Publishers, Middle Village, NY.
Stadtler, Bea, 1995. Amedeo Modigliani-Genius or Derelict? Judaica Philatelic Journal 331 (3): 3701-3703.
http://www.jovandespovic.com/?page_id=5461 Jovan Despotovic,2013.
http://www.visual-arts-cork.comgreatestsculptors-ever.htm Neil Collins, editor of the Encyclopedia of Art, 2013
http://www2facinghistory.org/Campus/memorials.nst/PrintView/228 Facing History and Ourselves, 2013.
Figures
Figure 1. Bas relief of “Woman’s Head” by Amadeo Modigliani, Bhutan 1970, Scott 126G on plastic molded stamp.
Figure 2. “Monument to Dov Grunor,” Israel 1984, Scott 805; “Mother and Child” by Chana Orloff, Israel 1974, Scott 538.
Figure 3. Sculptures of Ossip Zadkine: “Destroyed City,” Netherlands 1965, Scott 432, 434; Belgium 1974, Scott 809; “Femme a
l’eventail”(“Woman Holding a Fan”), France 1980, Scott 1689.
Figure 4. “Business” by Otto Gutfreund: Czechoslovakia 1968, Scott 1542.
Figure 5. “The Scribe” by Boris Schatz: Israel 1972, Scott 479.
Figure 6. Sculptures of Idel Ianchelevici: “Ft. Breendonk Memorial Monument” and Ft. building, Belgium 1951, Scott B495B497; “Louis Pierand” 1973, Scott 860; “ Ft. Breendonk Monument,” German Democratic Republic 1968, Scott 1047; “L’appel”
and “Perennis Perdural Poeta,” Joint issue 2004 Belgium, Scott 2036-2037 and Romania, Scott 4666-4667.
Figure 7. Portrait and Sculpture of Moisei Cogan: Moldova postal envelope FDC 2009.
Figure 8. “Danish Lifesaving Service” by Harald Salomon, Denmark, 1952 Scott 332.
Figure 9. “Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” by Nathan Rapoport: Poland 1956, Scott 737; Israel 1968, Scott 364; Poland 1983, Scott
2572; Joint issue 1993, 50th anniversary of Uprising on first day card, Poland Scott 3151, and Israel Scott 1163.
Figure 10. Portrait sculpture of Lenin by Nandor Glid: Yugoslavia 1974, Scott 1204; Photo of “Dachau” sculpture by Glid.
Figure 11. Abstract sculpture by Felicia Leirner commemorating 10th Biennial Art Exhibit, Sao Paulo, Brazil 1969, Scott 1126.
Figure 12. Michael Milberger’s sculpture of Adam Mickiewicz and Pushkin” Poland 1949, Scott 468.
Figure 13. Winston Churchill by Oscar Nemon: Monaco 1947, Scott 912; Luxembourg 1974, Scott 548.
Figure 14. Bust of United States President Benjamin Harrison by Alexander Weinman. United States 1938, Scott 814.
Figure 15. Sculpture of United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by Jo Davidson, Nicaragua 1946, Scott 700.
Figure 16. “Walk, Don’t Walk,” by George Segal, St. Vincent 1999, Scott 2742l; Photo of “The Holocaust” by Segal.
Figure 17. Full sheet with Portrait of Louise Nevelson and five of her sculptures, “Silent Spring,” “Royal Tide, “ “Black Chord,”
“Nightsphere-Light” and “Dawn’s Wedding Chapel,” 2000, Scott 3379-3383; B’nai B’rith cachet FDC with illustration of
“Seventh Decade Forest.”
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New Year Postcards
From Hilton Israelsohn
Here are some very early New Year Cards which are rather lovely I thought. They are all intended for posting with
space on the reverse for the recipient's name and address and message.
The topmost card featuring the lady aviator dropping Shanah Tova roses is dated by hand 12 September 1926, is
the only used one. It is addressed with a message a recipient in Kovno (Lithuania) but probably enclosed in a parcel as it bears no postage stamp or date stamp.
The other three are unused and probably date from the early 1900's .
Thanks to a member from Israel, who kindly translated, the Hebrew, which was actually mostly in Yiddish.
(Some of the Yiddish words have actually more than one meaning.)
The card above says - " Kalya Zasha (the girl's name) Flaya ( a play on words based on Flyer), mein Flaya Machine,
Ach, Ich veiss nit vu ich bin ( ach, I don't know where I am),
Vos is smir antkegen kumen n(what is coming towards me),
Yenem Shit ich meine blumen (I present my flowers to him)
At the bottom it says in Hebrew - LeShana Tova Tikatevu (you should be inscribed to a good year).
(Second card on next page)
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The second card (above) reads - In English on top and in Hebrew on the bottom (the Hebrew is the same as on
the bottom of the previous card).
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The third card, at the bottom of the previous page reads Der kol foon Shofar hicht un shalt (the sound of the Shofar, high and low),
Es kumt a naayer yahr doch bald (a new year is coming soon),
Vos heitert yeden shvachen geist (which scares every weak evil spirit),
Un breingt eich glik un fried un treist (and brings to you luck and joy and hope).
At the bottom of this card appear the same greetings as in the previous cards.
The lasst card reads - In Shul areiin (going into the Synagogue).
At the bottom are the same greetings as in the previous cards.
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The last card (on the previous page) reads In Shul are in (going into the Synagogue).
At the bottom are the same greetings as in the previous cards.
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Newsletter Index—Now Available
Pleased to say, thanks to David Blumenthal and Peter Keeda, there is now a Judaica
Thematic Society Newsletter Index.
Just click on this link
Judaica News Index
The following is the link, to see all the back newsletters, along with the latest one
issued every month.
Judaica News: The Judaica Thematic Society Newsletter
From next month onwards, the 2 links above will be on the front of the newsletter,
below the Newsletter header.
However, please note, that when you receive the latest newsletter, by e-mail — that
there can be a delay of up to 10 days, before that months articles actually appear in
the index, and on the website.
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WHAT WE REALLY NEED
We are glad to have announced the creation of a website to store all back and current
issues of Judaica News. We are also glad to have announced the creation of a website
to Index all the articles in our Newsletter. If you see any errors or difficulties, please be
in touch with Gary Goodman or David Blumenthal. These websites are a contribution to
the study of philately in general, and Judaica philately in particular.
What we really need, however, is an online Catalogue of Topical Judaica Stamps. David
Blumenthal attempted such a Catalogue when he went through The Sol Singer Collection of Philatelic Judaica at Emory University. He had the collection entered on Excel
worksheets, calling each sheet a “Stampchart.” This is explained on Israeli and Topical
Judaic Philately.
Using Excel worksheets is, however, not easy for those not familiar with it. What we really need is a catalogue, based upon user-friendly program, that would enable anyone
to easily add in his or her own data. This is called “crowd sourcing” and it is the basis
of the very, very wide success of Wikipedia.
Is there anyone out there with some experience in this kind of crowd-sourced website?
Or, is there someone out there who would be willing to try to find someone who could
create such a website (and get us a price)? It would really be a very major contribution
to the study of philately if we could do this. (As you know, the Israeli Philatelic Association maintains a Catalogue for Israeli stamps [click English] , but no one does it for
Topical Judaica.) We really, really, need this.
Please do be in touch to help us with this project.
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