On the Jewish Fields of the Ukraina.

£1,200 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books · No longer available

signed by the artist Album of 25 high quality plates (five in colour), portraying Jewish labourers and craftsmen in rural Ukraine. This signed copy is one of an edition limited to 50 copies printed on Dutch paper with an additional 300 copies being on Japan paper. Issachar Ber Ryback (1897–1935) was a Ukranian-Jewish artist. He graduated from the Kyivv art school in 1916 and played a key role in the Yiddish avant-garde movement of the Soviet Union, for this reason he moved to Moscow and took part in a Jewish Art show in 1917. Following his father's murder he fled to Germany in 1921, where he settled in Berlin and became a member of the Novembergruppe and was involved in a number of important exhibitions. In 1925 he returned for a short time to Russia, before moving to Paris in 1926. Here he lived at the heart of the city's artistic community and exhibited at the Galerie aux Quatre Chemins (1928) and Galerie L'Art Contemporain (1929). In 1935 he died of tuberculosis at only 38 years of age. Ryback remained best known for his depictions of the Shtetl live, and some say that if it wasn't for his untimely passing he might have been as renowned as his Parisian contemporary Marc Chagall. Much of Ryback's work was lost during the Second World War. First edition; signed numbered 16 of an edition of 50 on Dutch paper; 25 plates (5 of these in colour) with titles printed on the tissue guards, publishers decorative green roan boards, extremities worn; leaves clean with occasional minor

• Binding: Hardcover

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