464 - Judaica -

Judaica - RYBACK, Issachar Ber (1897–1935). Shtetl (Village). — Meyn chorever heym. A gedekenish [My Lost Home—A Memory]. Berlin, Schwellen, 1923. Oblong folio (33 x 49.3 cm), publisher’s purple cardboard binding illustrated on both covers, spine and corners in blue cloth. Copy severely warped, binding worn, scuffed at the edges, and stained. Title page, half-title, and 29 lithographed plates (III–XXXI), printed in black, bistre, or sepia; table of contents inserted on the last leaf. Light water stains on the endpapers, a few irregular foxing spots. A precious copy enriched with an autographed dedication by Ryback to Gustave KAHN, dated June 12, 1927. Published in Berlin in 1923 in a limited edition of only 250 copies, *Shtetl* is one of Issachar Ber Ryback’s major works and one of the most striking visual testimonies to the vanished world of Eastern European Jewish communities. The lithographs that make up the album, all dated 1917, evoke with great expressive power life in the shtetl before the upheavals and destruction that would profoundly transform that world. After studying in Kiev and Moscow, Ryback joined the Kultur-Lige, participating in the movement to revitalize modern Jewish art. He left Russia for Berlin in 1921, where this album was published, before settling permanently in Paris in 1926. A rare edition; a significant portion of the print run is believed to have been lost during World War II.