The synagogue at the Rabbi Meir Baal Hanes Tomb in Tiberias.

Watercolor on paper. Signed and dated 1949.

The work is a fine example of Gutman’s watercolors of the 1940s in its composed style and delicate details.

Enclosed is a letter of authenticity from the Nachum Gutman Museum in Tel Aviv, signed by Prof. Menachem Gutman, the artist's son.

Painting: 65X53 cm. Frame: 87X73.5 cm.

Yingl Tsingl Khvat [The Mischievous Boy], by Mani Leib. Illustrations by Eliezer (El) Lissitzky. Warsaw: "Kultur-Lige", 1922. Yiddish. Second edition.

A rhymed tale for children by Yiddish poet Menahem Leib Brahinsky (Mani Leib); accompanied by black-and-white illustrations by El Lissitzky, with a color cover illustration and a title page specially printed for this edition.

The book Yingl Tsingl Khvat was first published in 1919, designed by El Lissitzky, featuring on its front cover an illustration of a child riding a horse, printed in three colors – red, blue, and yellow (this illustration is among Lissitzky's most recognized works).

For the second edition, Lissitzky created an additional illustration, distinct from the other illustrations in the book – a modernist version of the colorful cover illustration –"distilling" the image of the child and horse into just three lines, combined with the text (this illustration served as the title page for the second edition).

The second edition was printed in 1922 in Warsaw in two sizes: a small booklet format (14 cm) and a full-sized book (the same size as the first edition). The present is a copy of the larger version, which is the rarer of the two.

See:

• Christina Lodder, Ideology and Identity: El Lissitzky in Berlin, (in: The Russian Jewish Diaspora and European Culture, 1917-1937. Leiden-Boston: Brill, [ca. 2012], pp. 339–360).

• Alexander Kantsedikas, El Lissitzky, The Jewish Period. London: Unicorn Publishing Group, 2017 (p. 97).

[1], 10, [1] pages, 26 cm. Fair condition (cover in fair-poor condition). Stains. Creases. Front cover detached. Tears and missing pieces along cover edges (mostly minor).

Advertising poster for the film "Professor Mamlock". USA, [1938].

At the center of the poster is an illustration of the film’s most well-known scene – the Jewish doctor, Professor Mamlock, being dragged by two Nazi SA officers, with the word "Jude" (Jew) inscribed on his coat. The margins list the film’s creators: directors Herbert Rappaport and Adolf Minkin, playwright Friedrich Wolf, and the Lenfilm (Ленфильм) Studios in Saint Petersburg.

The film "Professor Mamlock" was produced in the Soviet Union in 1938, based on a play by the Jewish physician Friedrich Wolf, and was among the first cinematic works to portray the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Upon its release, it achieved unprecedented success in Russia, and within the same year was distributed worldwide, screening before millions of viewers. Due to pressure from Nazi Germany, the film was banned in several countries – including Britain, France, and China – but not in the USA, where it was screened in over 100 theaters (its premiere took place on November 7, 1938, two days before the Kristallnacht pogroms in Germany).

The poster was designed by Hugo Gellert (1892-1985), a Jewish-American painter, anti-fascist political artist, and member of the Communist Party in the USA. During World War II, he led the "Artists for Victory" organization – comprising some 10,000 American artists who contributed their skills to the fight against Nazi Germany. Gellert created this poster in preparation for the film’s premiere.

Approx. 100X68 cm. Fair-good condition. Fold marks. Some stains and creases. Tears along margins and fold lines (professionally restored, with minor color touch-ups). Small adhesive tape pieces on verso.

HAPAG Mittelmeer- und Orientfahrten, advertising poster for the Mediterranean routes of the German shipping company HAPAG, designed by Otto Arpke. Berlin: Offsetdruck Otto Elsner, [1930s]. German.

A vividly colored printed poster depicting a small settlement on the coastline of Palestine (possibly Jaffa), with a large ship offshore and fishing boats near the coast. In the foreground, two local women are shown, one carrying a basket of fruit on her head, with palm tree branches behind them.

The transatlantic shipping company HAPAG (Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft, English: Hamburg-America Line) was founded in Hamburg in 1847, operating one of the world’s largest commercial fleets, which was nearly wiped out twice – during both World Wars. The company ran passenger routes to numerous ports worldwide, including ports in the Mediterranean Sea.

Otto Arpke (Otto Arpke, 1886-1943), a German painter, illustrator, and graphic designer, born in Braunschweig. Trained in lithographic arts in Hanover, where he also studied at an art and design school; influenced by German painters such as August Schlüter, Emil Orlik, and Paul Scheurich. Served as a professor at the Kunst- und Gewerbeschule in Mainz. Arpke was renowned for his graphic works, including posters designed for Norddeutscher Lloyd and HAPAG (which merged in the 1970s to form Hapag-Lloyd AG), the poster he created for the film "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", and magazine cover illustrations. He also designed elements for the interiors of the Zeppelins "Hindenburg" and "Graf Zeppelin II".

Following the Nazi rise to power, Arpke was accused of Communist sympathies and dismissed from his position in Mainz, though he later secured another post in Berlin. He was associated with a Berlin resistance group that distributed anti-Nazi leaflets, and he aided his Jewish friends in hiding and escaping Germany.

Approx. 60X85 cm. Good condition. Mounted on linen for display and preservation.

Altneuland, Roman von Theodor Herzl. Leipzig: Hermann Seemann Nachfolger, [1902]. German.
First edition.

Utopian novel. A narrative expressing Theodor Herzl’s vision of a Jewish state. The title page bears Herzl’s motto: "Wenn ihr wollt, ist es kein Märchen" [If you will it – it is no dream].

Theodor Herzl composed his novel "Altneuland" ("The Old New Land") in the years 1899-1902 and originally titled it "New Zion". He changed the title to "Altneuland" later on, inspired by the name of Prague’s great Old-New Synagogue, the "Altneuschul". The book was translated into both Yiddish and Hebrew in 1902, the same year it was finally published in German (the translator Nachum Sokolow decided to title the Hebrew edition of the book "Tel Aviv", and a few years later, this name was applied to the newly founded "first Hebrew city"). Within a year, Herzl’s novel was translated into six languages.

A
particularly fine copy, in its original, elegant binding, stamped with the impression of the seal of the bookbinders "Hübel und Denck ", who produced a number of bindings for particularly valuable books published by the Hermann Seemann literary publishing company. Only some of the copies of the first edition of "Altneuland" were adorned with this special binding.

[2] leaves, 343, [5] pages. 18 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. Slight wear to binding.