Arthur Szyk: Miniature Paintings and Modern Iluminations
Arthur Szyk (American, b. Poland, 1894–1951) is remembered today as an artist and illustrator whose work ranged from illustrations for traditional Jewish and Polish folktales and religious texts to watercolor designs for political cartoons that were regularly featured on the cover of Collier’s magazine throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
The exhibition Arthur Szyk: Miniature Paintings and Modern Illuminations, will continue at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco to March 27, 2011. It explores Szyk’s artistry over a productive career and returns the artist to the Legion of Honor, where a selection of his watercolors was shown seventy years ago, in 1941. This single-gallery presentation of 71 works on paper by Szyk also includes a handful of comparative works by Léon Bakst, Aubrey Beardsley and Albrecht Dürer.
The Exhibition
Szyk used a highly detailed and decorative style of illumination throughout his career, finding it an appropriate means of expression for projects as varied as political caricature and propaganda, designs for honorific medals and badges, and illustrations for book projects ranging from important religious texts to literary classics. The exhibition is organized chronologically, allowing visitors to witness the artist’s continued dedication to this very personal style, from his early works in Paris, and throughout his later career in Lodz, London, Ottawa, New York and New Canaan (Connecticut). Szyk’s renowned Passover Haggadah (1940) is included in a special section of the exhibition devoted to the artist’s book illustration projects; also included are designs for Hans Christian Andersen’s Andersen Fairy Tales (1945) and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1946).
Installed at the end of the exhibition are some of the drawings for one of his last projects, a series of stamp album covers, commissioned upon the founding of the United Nations in 1945. In this series, Szyk combined symbols and allusions to personages past and present that referred to the unique histories of the subject countries that were all early UN member states, and countries with which Szyk had a deep personal connection.
The Artist
In all areas of his art, Szyk’s Polish and Jewish heritage remained central, and his attention to detail betrayed considerable historical research into his craft. Like many of his artist peers, Szyk understood that images could be powerful tools, used to incite change within society. However, he broke from contemporary Modernist ideals by avoiding abstraction in favor of figurative work. Szyk preferred to work in elaborate detail, recalling the intricate illumination present in medieval manuscripts, Near-Eastern miniature paintings and traditional Polish folk arts.
On January 30, 2011, 2:00 pm, the Gould Theater at the Legion of Honor is presenting a symposium devoted to the prolific works of Arthur Szyk, particularly the influential religious and political works produced between 1934 and 1945, exploring the artist’s commitment to the ideals of social justice.
Whether combating anti-Semitism and Nazism or advocating for the rescue of European Jewry and civil rights for African Americans, Szyk combined beauty and polemic to spur his audience first to righteous indignation and then to decisive action.
Top: Design for illustration in the book Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1945), The King and Queen of Roses Transparent and opaque watercolor Collection of Irvin Ungar
Above: To the French People in Comradeship-in-Arms; The People of America (Joan of Arc), 1942. Transparent and opaque watercolor, Collection of Irvin Ungar