Rachel Szalit-Marcus

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Self portrait
Illustration for Mentshelekh un stsenes (1922)
Illustration for Fischke der Krumme (1921)
Book title for Das Krokodil (1921)

Rachel Szalit-Marcus (born Rachel Marcus on July 3, 1894 in Chjenty, Kaunas District , Kovno Governorate , Russian Empire ; died in 1942 in the Auschwitz extermination camp ) was a Polish-German painter and graphic artist.

Life

Rachel Marcus grew up in Łódź in Russian-occupied Poland in a Jewish family. Her parents encouraged her artistic ambitions and, at the age of 16, sent her to the Munich Art Academy in the German Reich in 1911 . Here she met the painters Henri Epstein and Marcel Słodki, who also came from Łódź . She married the actor Julius Szalit, who committed suicide in Munich on August 28, 1919, (source Deutsches Bühnenjahrbuch 1920, p. 164) Alfred Kerr wrote about it on August 31; he had just received the news from Munich. He also describes an encounter with Szalit in 1918. They lived in Berlin since 1916, where she joined the Berlin Secession painter group and became active in the November group during the revolution . During her time in Berlin, she initially still painted landscapes. In 1920 , Karl Schwarz discussed a winter impression and two cityscapes of her from Leipziger Strasse and Leipziger Platz in the magazine Ost und West . At that time she had already started to write books from the Hebrew and Yiddish literature of her contemporaries Martin Buber (The Stories of Rabbi Nachman), Mendele Moicher Sforim (Fischke der Krumme), Shalom Aleichem (People and Scenes), Israel Zangwill (King of the Schnorrer ) and Chaim Nachman Bialik as well as by Heinrich Heine (Hebrew Melodies), Charles Dickens (London Pictures) , Fyodor Dostojewski ( The Crocodile ) and Lev Tolstoy ( The Kreutzer Sonata ) and created his own portfolio works for them.

After the handover of power to the National Socialists in 1933, Szalit-Marcus had to flee to France from German anti-Semitism . Her work there is attributed to the style of the École de Paris of the 1930s. In the course of the deportation of Jews from occupied France, she was ghettoized in France in 1942 and deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp , where she was murdered.

Szalit-Marcus painted (children's) portraits, pieces of flowers and still lifes. Her studio was looted and destroyed during her deportation, and her watercolors and oil paintings have so far been lost almost without exception. On the other hand, individual copies of her book illustrations and portfolios have survived, so that with her etchings and lithographs she is primarily regarded as a book illustrator today.

Works (selection)

  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky: The crocodile: an extremely strange incident or what happened in the passage. Transferred from Edith Ziegler; with 12 lithographs by Rahel Szalit-Marcus. Kiepenheuer, Potsdam 1921.
  • Fischke the crooked. Portfolio with 16 lithographs on laid paper and an introduction by Julius Elias . Propylaea, Berlin 1922.
  • Mentshelekh un stsenes: zekhtsn tseykhenungen tsu Sholem-Aleykhems denotes Motl Peyse to the khazns yingl. Bagleytvort from Bal-Makhshoves . Klal-Farlag, Berlin 1922.
  • Heinrich Heine: Hebrew Melodies. With twelve lithographs by Rahel Szalit-Marcus; edited and introduced by Hugo Bieber . For the literary association Hesperus, Berlin 1923.
  • Charles Dickens: London Pictures. Translated from the English by Ernst Sander . With stone drawings by Rahel Szalit-Marcus. Hans Heinrich Tillgner, Berlin 1923.

literature

Web links

Commons : Rachel Szalit-Marcus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The information follows here Sabine Koller: Mentshelekh un stsenes. 2012. The year of birth is also given as 1896, and Telschi as the place of birth . There is no verification of the settlement name for the Kaunas district for both “Chjenty” and the spelling “Ischgenty”. Possibly Šančiai .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Sabine Koller: Mentshelekh un stsenes. 2012.
  3. ↑ According ThB she also studied in Paris and London.
  4. ↑ Julius Szalit in the Internet Movie Database (English)
personal data
SURNAME Szalit-Marcus, Rachel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marcus, Rachel (maiden name); Szalit, Rachel; Szalit Marcus, Rachel (signature)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-German painter and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Chjenty or Ischgenty, Kovno Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH 1942
Place of death Auschwitz extermination camp