Arthur Kolnik

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Arthur Kolnik (born May 4, 1890 in Stanisławów , Austria-Hungary , today Ivano-Frankiwsk, † 1972 in Paris ), was a Galician-Jewish illustrator and painter. According to Nadine Nieszawer , it can be assigned to the modern first École de Paris . His paintings and expressionist woodcuts show the figures and images of Eastern European Judaism , the world of the shtetl that was extinguished by the Holocaust .

Life

Arthur Kolnik was the child of a Lithuanian father and a Viennese mother. After attending the school in Stanisławów, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow from 1908 to 1914 . There he worked in the studio of the painter and graphic artist Józef Mehoffer . He took part in the First World War as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army and, after being wounded, was sent to a Vienna hospital in 1916. There he met the painter Isidor Kaufmann that was important for him .

In 1918 Kolnik moved to Chernivtsi . There he was friends with the Yiddish writers Elieser Steinbarg and Itzik Manger , as well as the poet Rose Ausländer . In November 1918 he took part in an art exhibition in the Czernowitz Trade Museum. In 1920 and 1921 he stayed in New York together with the painter Reuven Rubin , who was also friends . Both presented together in the Anderson Galleries of Alfred Stieglitz from. In 1921, again in Chernivtsi, Kolnik illustrated a Yiddish school book by Elieser Steinbarg and exhibited it in 1922 at the Chernivtsi Art Association. Another exhibition followed in 1926, and in 1928 a portfolio with woodcuts containing the fables of Elieser Steinbargs. In 1929 he created a portrait of Itzig Manger, which he executed in various versions, including a drawing.

Kolnik spent the rest of his life in Paris. In 1931 he settled there with his first wife and two children. He then worked as a cartoonist and for fashion magazines, creating woodcuts in his free time. He still maintained the connection to Chernivtsi. After Elieser Steinbarg's death in 1932, a commemorative volume with fables from Steinbarg von Kolnik was provided with woodcuts. Kolnik designed the gravestones of Steinbarg and Itzig Manger's mother in the Jewish cemetery in Chernivtsi. In 1933 and 1934, woodcuts were printed in Paris. In 1935 Kolnik exhibited in Buenos Aires and in 1936 an edition of Steinbarg's Fables with 109 woodcuts by Kolnik appeared in Chernivtsi. In 1938 Kolnik worked for the Franco-German magazine Verbe - Cahiers Humains , which was published by Maximilien Rubel .

From 1940 to 1944 Kolnik and his family were interned in a camp for stateless persons. After the end of the Second World War he was able to publish illustrations again in 1946, 1948 and 1949. In 1948 he took French citizenship. He became a member of the Association of Jewish Painters and Sculptors in France and received the Prix ​​Chaban in New York in 1952 . In 1959 he illustrated a work by the Yiddish poet Moses Schulstein. In 1960 and 1961 he illustrated books by Jehiel Hofer and Abraham Sutzkever , which were published in Tel Aviv and New York. In 1962 his first wife died. He later married again, his second wife was the painter Ezra Kolnik. Further illustrations followed in 1966 and in 1967 the art historian Maximilien Gauthier published a monograph on Arthur Kolnik. A year later he exhibited over 130 works, including almost 70 oil paintings, in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art . In 1969, fables illustrated by Elieser Steinbargs were reprinted in Tel Aviv. Kolnik died in Paris in 1972.

“Arthur Kolnik may have been an intellectual who had many intellectual friends, but he believed in a specific Jewish art, shaped by traditional Judaism, and so he has drawn motifs from Jewish life since his first brushstrokes. […] When peace returned, the Jewish tragedy showed itself in all its hellish size and since 1945 the martyrdom of his people has been the main source of his inspiration. […] At the bottom of his soul he feels, he feels, that he has the mission to tell, to tell in shapes and colors, of the daily life of the villages of his youth, to paint Jewish children who have dressed up for Purim, musicians , Occasional poets at Jewish weddings, mothers lighting Shabbat candles, a bride in tears under the wedding canopy, the old wooden synagogue, lit, on fire, and which only exists in his memory. "

- H. Gamzu : Foreword to the booklet accompanying the exhibition, December 1968

Aftermath

In 1990 Peretz Verlag Tel Aviv published Itzik Manger's book Midrash Itsik with Kolnik's woodcuts. The exhibition My dear Roisele about Itzig Manger and Elieser Steinbarg was shown with works by Kolnik in 1997 in the Osnabrück University Library and in 1999 in Tübingen. Arthur Kolnik's works are antiquarian and available in art shops. In 2004, the New York YIVO Institute for Jewish Research showed works by Arthur Kolnik in an exhibition of Jewish artists of the 20th century.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nadine Nieszawer: Peintres juifs à Paris, 1905-1939. École de Paris. Denoël, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-207-25142-X .
  2. ↑ Arthur Kolnik - Ivano-Frankivsk - 1890 - Paris - 1972. in: Nadine Nieszawer. on ecoledeparis.org . (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 15, 2015 ; Retrieved October 8, 2010 .
  3. ^ Adrian M. Darmon: Autour de l'art juif: encyclopédie des peintres, photographes et sculpteurs . Carnot, 2003, ISBN 2-84855-011-2 .
  4. ↑ Chernivtsi. Where people and books lived. Retrieved October 8, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Ecole de Paris. Retrieved October 7, 2010 .
  6. ^ Kolnik project. Retrieved October 7, 2010 .
  7. ↑ Shown exhibitions: Yiddish poets from Bukovina. Retrieved October 8, 2010 .
  8. ↑ Dear Roisele. In: uni-tuebingen.de. August 15, 2018, accessed February 6, 2019 .
  9. ↑ www.antiquariat.de. Retrieved October 8, 2010 .
  10. ↑ www.artnet.de. Retrieved October 8, 2010 .
  11. ^ YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. (PDF; 807 kB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 13, 2013 ; Retrieved October 8, 2010 .
  12. ↑ exhibition catalog. The title comes from a letter from AK to foreigners. Other authors Rose Ausländer , Alfred Margul-Sperber , Alfred Kittner , Helios Hecht, Edith Silbermann and others. Other ISBNs in various editions: ISBN 3932670051 ISBN 3931826074 . Contains from AK among other things: woodcut Jew with dove (after another source 1933; black full figure in front of a black background with black sun and three small Christian church towers); Woodcut "Elieser Steinbarg" 1928 (large head with reflective glasses and reflective forehead; looking to the left as seen from the beholder; often depicted the wrong way round in reprints; the correct depiction results from the signature on the lower left); Drawing: Draft for Steinbarg's tomb and photo of the execution (ornaments slightly changed) 1995; Woodcut undated: jew. Tombstone field *; Ink drawing: Portrait of Mangers (cover picture of Ms book Stars on the Roof ) 1929; a similar drawing, around 1929, possibly a preliminary study; Woodcut undated: Two one-column candlesticks with burning candles, in the background a synagogue *; Self-portrait undated Ink*; Woodcut AK 1948 (figure on the right, looking upwards on the left); ditto 1948 massive figure with beard open through. black background from right. to the left, in the foreground 2 oversized hands; Woodcut, presumably Fir branches, as a braid with small. Symbols inside., A card for foreigners, sign. 33/61 (possibly 1961); Woodcut "Reb Hamil" 1948 * (similar to: "Jude mit der Fidel" as a lithograph, not in the volume); ditto "Ad Gloriam Dei" 1948; ditto, AK 1948 (elbows supported on a small table, candle, large beard) 1948; ditto, AK (head picture) undated .; ditto, in the 1–3 / 1938 issue of Zs. Verbe Cahiers Humains; Oil painting undated "Masked Children". All pictures in b / w "Undat." means: in this edition; the book has no listed catalog raisonné - four of the pictures (here marked with *) and the cover picture, also by AK, can be found online (along with other pictures) on the Univ. Tübingen, see note above
personal data
SURNAME Kolnik, Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French illustrator and painter
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Ivano-Frankivsk
DATE OF DEATH 1972
Place of death Paris