Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit

by Kerry Wallach

Overview

Graphic artist, illustrator, painter, and cartoonist Rahel Szalit (1888–1942) was among the best-known Jewish women artists in Weimar Berlin. But after she was arrested by the French police and then murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz, she was all but lost to history, and most of her paintings have been destroyed or gone missing. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, this biography recovers Szalit’s life and presents a stunning collection of her art.

Szalit was a sought-after artist. Highly regarded by art historians and critics of her day, she made a name for herself with soulful, sometimes humorous illustrations of Jewish and world literature by Sholem Aleichem, Heinrich Heine, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and others. She published her work in the mainstream German and Jewish press, and she ran in artists’ and queer circles in Weimar Berlin and in 1930s Paris. Szalit’s fascinating life demonstrates how women artists gained access to Jewish and avant-garde movements by experimenting with different media and genres.

This engaging and deeply moving biography explores the life, work, and cultural contexts of an exceptional Jewish woman artist. Complementing studies such as Michael Brenner’s The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, this book brings Rahel Szalit into the larger conversation about Jewish artists, Expressionism, and modern art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271095592
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	03/12/2024
Series:	Dimyonot , #17
Pages:	312
Sales rank:	548,372
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.05(d)

About the Author

Kerry Wallach is Associate Professor and Chair of German Studies and an affiliate of the Jewish Studies Program at Gettysburg College. She is the author of Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 From the Shtetl to the City (1888–1919)

1 The Markus Family in Eastern Europe

2 Munich, War, and Marriage

3 Berlin Expressionist Circles

Part 2 Inflation- Era Illustrations (1920–1923)

4 Classic World Literature

5 Grotesque Yiddish Figures

6 “Hebrew Melodies

Part 3 The Wild Sides of Weimar (1924–1933)

7 Newspaper Artist

8 Sexuality and the Bible

9 The Jewish K.the Kollwitz

Part 4 Exile in Paris (1933–1942)

10 From Berlin to the School of Paris

11 Holocaust Fates

Epilogue: Remembering Rahel Szalit

Chronology

Appendix 1: Rahel Szalit’s Known Exhibitions and Works

Appendix 2: Translations of Short Stories by Rahel Szalit

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

01/22/2024

Wallach (Passing Illusions), an associate professor of German studies at Gettysburg College, resurrects in this poignant biography the life of Jewish expressionist Rahel Szalit (1888–1942), whose evocative illustrations enlivened Yiddish literature and the works of Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy. Born Rahel Marcus in what is now Lithuania, Szalit moved to Munich, Germany, in her early 20s, began working as an illustrator, and entered into a brief marriage with actor Julius Szalit, who committed suicide in 1919. Just as her career took off, the rise of the Nazi party forced her to flee to Paris, where she remained until being deported to Auschwitz and killed in 1942. While the established facts of Szalit’s existence are relatively paltry, Wallach—who spent 15 years scouring “everywhere imaginable for sources that could help reconstruct life,” including 35 archives in seven countries—has gained enough insight into her subject to weave a coherent, lively narrative. At the start of each chapter, invented scenes “fill in the gaps where insufficient evidence survives,” and the artist’s own wide-ranging illustrations are utilized to bring her further to life, whether it’s through a haunting self-portrait or an expressionistic depiction of a student’s first Talmud exam. Wallach’s careful perusal of the extant sources also places Szalit’s work in the context of her complex personal life, enabling her to be celebrated “as a bisexual and queer artist.” This masterful historical reconstruction gives welcome due to a forgotten talent. Photos. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

This masterful historical reconstruction gives welcome due to a forgotten talent.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This first-ever critical biography of Rahel Szalit skillfully recovers and reassembles the scattered fragments of her life to create a vivid mosaic of an artist forgotten because she was Jewish, a woman, queer, and, in many ways, stateless. Based on meticulous archival work, Kerry Wallach’s brilliant book recuperates an unjustly neglected chapter in the history of Jewish art and interwar culture.”

—Daniel H. Magilow,University of Tennessee, Knoxville

“Wallach creates a rich, lively, and very detailed picture of Rahel Szalit-Marcus as an artist and a person through extensive research across a wide range of resources. Traces of a Jewish Artist gives depth and nuance to scholarly conversations about modern Jewish art in Europe. It expands histories of Jewish and women artists in early twentieth-century Germany and poignantly demonstrates the significant loss of so many stories.”

—Celka Straughn,Deputy Director for Public Practice and Curatorial, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas

From the Publisher