Auction 73 - Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
Twelve Raffia and Wood Figurines by Baruch Mairantz – Scenes from the Life of the Jewish-Polish Shtetl
Opening: $600
Sold for: $2,000
Including buyer's premium
"My Shtetel" – twelve Raffia and wood figurines by Baruch Mairantz. Signed on the wooden bases (etching).
Twelve figurines depicting pictures from the Jewish-Polish shtetl – a bride on her wedding day (the work, titled "The Bride and the Jester", depicts the bride sitting on an impressive chair with musicians beside her. The Jester – Badchan, whose role is to entertain the guests, is standing on a chair to her left), a Jew smoking a pipe in the corner of his library ("First Pipe after Sabbath"), Jews studying together ("Ein Ya'akov Society"), a young typesetter at work, and more.
The artist, Baruch Mairantz, was born in Wielun, Poland and immigrated to Palestine in 1935. By means of his figurines, he tried to document the figures that had accompanied him as a child in Poland. "His figurines are an expression of deep love and compassion. These are childhood memories […] and it is an artistic integration of life of poverty and dignity of a Jew of the Shtetl. Yet these figurines are also an expressive monument to a world that was so tragically destroyed. With unlimited love, Baruch Mairantz described the daily life of a small community in normal times; its observant Jews, its scholars and its craftsmen; the life of the sacred and the secular […] Moreover, he revived an old lifestyle, so typical of and special to the Jews of the Shtetl" (from Moshe Davidovich's introduction to the catalog of "My Shtetl". Published by "Amir", Tel-Aviv, 1972. Hebrew).
Mairantz's first exhibition was held at the ZOA House in Tel-Aviv in 1960. His works were also displayed in the Ethnography and Folklore Museum (Eretz Israel Museum) and the Beit Uri and Rami Nehoshtan Museum. Pictures of his raffia figurines were printed in a memorial book for the Wielun community (published by the Association of Wielun Jews in Israel, 1971).
Size varies: approx. 19X13 cm to 23X38 cm. Good overall condition.
Literature: My Shtetl, Wood and Raffia by Baruch Mairantz, catalog, Tel-Aviv: "Amir", 1972 (enclosed). The catalog documents most of the present figurines.
Twelve figurines depicting pictures from the Jewish-Polish shtetl – a bride on her wedding day (the work, titled "The Bride and the Jester", depicts the bride sitting on an impressive chair with musicians beside her. The Jester – Badchan, whose role is to entertain the guests, is standing on a chair to her left), a Jew smoking a pipe in the corner of his library ("First Pipe after Sabbath"), Jews studying together ("Ein Ya'akov Society"), a young typesetter at work, and more.
The artist, Baruch Mairantz, was born in Wielun, Poland and immigrated to Palestine in 1935. By means of his figurines, he tried to document the figures that had accompanied him as a child in Poland. "His figurines are an expression of deep love and compassion. These are childhood memories […] and it is an artistic integration of life of poverty and dignity of a Jew of the Shtetl. Yet these figurines are also an expressive monument to a world that was so tragically destroyed. With unlimited love, Baruch Mairantz described the daily life of a small community in normal times; its observant Jews, its scholars and its craftsmen; the life of the sacred and the secular […] Moreover, he revived an old lifestyle, so typical of and special to the Jews of the Shtetl" (from Moshe Davidovich's introduction to the catalog of "My Shtetl". Published by "Amir", Tel-Aviv, 1972. Hebrew).
Mairantz's first exhibition was held at the ZOA House in Tel-Aviv in 1960. His works were also displayed in the Ethnography and Folklore Museum (Eretz Israel Museum) and the Beit Uri and Rami Nehoshtan Museum. Pictures of his raffia figurines were printed in a memorial book for the Wielun community (published by the Association of Wielun Jews in Israel, 1971).
Size varies: approx. 19X13 cm to 23X38 cm. Good overall condition.
Literature: My Shtetl, Wood and Raffia by Baruch Mairantz, catalog, Tel-Aviv: "Amir", 1972 (enclosed). The catalog documents most of the present figurines.
Israeli and International Art
Israeli and International Art