Irvin Unger: Athur Szyk’s John the Baptist |
Irvin Unger, Reviving the Artist Who Fought Hitler: My Life with Arthur Szyk (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2026).
“My soul is bound up with his soul.”
Irvin Unger is Arthur Szyk’s John the Baptist. Let me tell you why!
He is that rare combination of art dealer and art critic who, almost single-handedly, revived interest and resurrected to artistic prominence Arthur Szyk, a Polish American Jewish artist whose work was featured seemingly everywhere during World War II and who marshalled his talents in the battle for freedom.
Many Jews will be familiar with the Szyk Haggadah, first published in England in 1940, translated with a commentary by Cecil Roth, in which the traditional text is enhanced with a then most contemporary artistic interpretation. Pharoah was not just an ancient historical oppressor of the Jews, but Szyk bluntly points to the Pharoah of his day. In 1940 there was no question as to who was Pharoah. The only question was who were his minions.
The Four Sons are four different types of Jews. The quest for freedom is the same, the artistic commentary bold, defiant, brilliantly illustrated in majestic colors, yet the artist is anything but subtle. I remember the book as a child, one of the many Haggadot that graced our Passover table, the text always invites commentary. The art was provocative, deliberately so, defiantly so.
Students of the Holocaust remember Szyk’s powerful illustrations of Ben Hecht’s call to arms that appeared in newspapers and on posters supporting the urgent activities of the Bergson........