Arthur Szyk was born in 1894 in Łódź, in an area of Poland which at that time was under
Russian rule.
His family were Jewish and his father was the director of a textile factory in the town,
but tragically in 1905 during a period of insurrection a rioting factory worker threw
acid in his face and he was permanently blinded. in 1909 when he was only 16 years old Szyk
travelled to Paris to study at the Académie Julian.
Following his studies he returned to Poland and began creating political cartoons while
simultaneously continued his studies at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
In 1914 he was conscripted into the Russian army to fight against Germany, but in 1916
with war still raging he married Julia Liekerman and a year later she gave birth to a son.
Poland regained its independence at the end of the war in 1918, and in 1919 he created
a series of pen and ink cartoons for a satire aimed at all things germanic by the writer
Julian Tuwim.
but in the same year Szyk fought again, this time as a Polish cavalry officer in the mercifully
brief war with Russia which ended with a Polish victory in 1920.
in 1921 he and his family relocated to Paris.
and it was there that he began to enjoy his first significant success as an illustrator.
In 1925 his illustrations for the Book of Esther from the Hebrew Bible was published,
featuring the incredibly detailed colour application and fine graphic ornamentation, all created
with the use of gouache paint, with which he would make his reputation.
A year later it was followed by his illustrated edition of Gustave Flaubert's The Temptation
of Saint Anthony, which also featured meticulously applied gouache and deliberately medievally
structured and formally composed scenes.
Pierre Benoît's novel Jacob's Well was published in 1927 and this time although every bit as
mannered as his other illustrations Szyk's images were suitably contemporary in their
subject matter.
The only stylistic exception to this painted approach came with the two volume edition
of anecdotal humour titled The Laughing Jew, published at the same time.
These books were a return to his much earlier pen and ink style with a series of throwaway
spot illustrations dotted throughout to accompany the humorous text.
During the second half of the 1920s, he was also involved in the creation of a series
of images which commemorated the Statute of Kalisz, a charter of liberties granted to
the Jews by the Duke of Kalisz in 1264.
It was eventually published as a book in 1932, but it had gained earlier popularity when
some of the images had been published as a set of postcards in Poland in the later 1920s.
In 1930 he began another sizeable historical project, this time on the subject of George
Washington and the American Revolutionary War.
The series of around 40 precisely rendered watercolours was presented at an exhibition
at the Library of Congress a few years later, where it attracted a large number of visitors.
When Hitler's National Socialist party came to power in Germany in 1933 Arthur Szyk began
what would be a remarkably long and visually eloquent series of condemnations of the man
and his ideology, He created many drawings and paintings of
increasing visual sophistication and acute political observation which sent out clear
warning signals about where this regime was heading.
Unfortunately very few were listening, and most ignored the obvious growing threat.
His anti-Nazi images aside at this time Szyk was primarily occupied with creating a major
series illustrating the Haggadah, the account of the Jewish Exodus from ancient Egypt.
The series comprised 48 miniature paintings produced between 1934 and 1936, But in 1937
when he travelled to London, where the book was to be printed and published, he was forced
to remove some of his more overt anti-German references by the publishers, who were by
this point reluctant to provoke the increasingly belligerent Hitler.
It's hard to imagine how he had found the time to create it, but at the 1939 New York
World's Fair, The Polish Pavilion prominently featured Szyk's 23 remarkably detailed paintings
depicting the contribution of the Poles to the history of the United States, one of the
greatest works of civic art created in this period.
The Haggadah was finally published in 1940, by which time Poland had already been invaded
by Germany.
and according to the art critic at the Times newspaper it was "worthy to be placed among
the most beautiful of books that the hand of man has ever produced".
And he was probably right, but it was also the most expensive new book in the world at
the time, with each of the 250 limited edition copies of vellum selling for what would now
be just shy of £8000 or $10000.
Now that Szyk's dire warnings about the Nazis had proven painfully accurate he redoubled
his efforts as a propagandist for the allies with a series of painted cartoons which reflected
his immense disdain for the Fuhrer and his associates Goering, Goebbels and the Italian
dictator Mussolini.
And Following the Haggadah's publication Szyk left Britain for the USA, with the express
mission of bringing Americans onside with the allies' struggle against the Nazis.
In that year the American publisher George Macy of the highly respected Heritage Press
asked him to illustrate the Persian book The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám.
Szyk obliged and the results were another major creative triumph which again made great
use of intricate delicately visualised borders around the actual narrative content of the
illustrations.
Every one of the page illustrations created constituted a highly absorbing blend of technical
accomplishment and aesthetic balance.
Once more I can only marvel at his prolific output but in his capacity as an envoy for
the allies in 1941 he also published his book of satirical drawings of Hitler and his associates
titled The New Order which was successful in whipping up greater support from the USA.
But it was Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1that year which brought the USA into the
war, and Szyk now had a new target for his merciless mockery in the form of emperor Hirohito
and his military leaders.
As both a Jew and a Pole Szyk's hatred of the axis powers was more than understandable.
but he never allowed his emotions to get the better of him and his satirical potshots were
always clearheaded and metaphorically accurate.
Not long after his arrival in the USA, Szyk was inspired by a speech made by President
Roosevelt to create a quartet of powerful stylised images illustrating each of the four
freedoms of humanity, and these images were very well received.
His satires of the enemy appeared frequently in newspapers and magazines including Time,
Esquire, and Collier's.
And they also featured regularly on propaganda posters for the military and civilians, including
some highly amusing cautionary posters for American troops about venereal disease.
Szyk did not avoid topics which presented the Allies in a less favourable light, and
in a controversial drawing from 1944, a group of debating Polish politicians are shown as
opponents of Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill.
He also created imagery around this time expressing solidarity with Russia, despite their earlier
historical transgressions against his homeland.
Despite the war entering its 6th year in 1945 he also illustrated a new edition of the fairy
tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
This book contained some relatively simple pen and ink monochromes but as usual if was
his colour painted work which defined the book and made it so very successful.
These fantasy illustrations were painted with his expected eye for detail, and they undoubtedly
formed one of the most vivid and imaginative visualisations of Andersen's stories ever
created.
Following the end of the war In 1945, Arthur Szyk and his family moved from New York City
to New Canaan, Connecticut and a year later the Heritage Press published a large collection
of paintings and drawings from the years of the war, memorably titled Ink and Blood.
Szyk continued to be astonishingly prolific in the postwar years, even though his satirical
work was no longer required now that peace of a sort had been restored.
In 1946 his illustrated edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was published, although rather
than deal with the actual tales told by the various characters he concentrated on creating
studies of the characters themselves, which would not look out of place as designs for
some medievalist computer game.
But in the same year 2 more books were published, Pathways through the Bible written by Mortimer
J. Cohen and the The Book of Job.
This constituted a return to Biblically themed projects and in the following year he published
another 2, The Book of Ruth and The Ten Commandments, which to be strictly accurate was more a series
of decorated panels, each evoking a particular sin.
Arthur Szyk was granted American citizenship in 1948, and in the same year was delighted
that the Israeli Declaration of Independence was announced.
And he celebrated tis event with the publication of his richly decorated illumination of the
document.
There was more religious work in 1949 with an illustrated Story of Joseph and his Brothers,
and 2 years later, on July 4, 1950, he also exhibited another illuminated text of the
United States Declaration of Independence.
He continued to be politically active, and publicly criticised the McCarthyism rampant
in 1950s America, and the inherent racism of some elements of American society.
Like other outspoken artists of his era, he was accused by the House Un-American Activities
Committee of belonging to communist organisations.
Szyk and his son George vehemently denied any such leanings, but it became a moot point
when not much later in 1951 Arthur Szyk died of a heart attack at the age of only 57.
In the decades following his death a couple of his books were reprinted and published
again, but even so he became increasingly forgotten in the USA.
But in 1991 The Arthur Szyk Society was established in Orange County, California.
The founder of the society, George Gooche, rediscovered Szyk's works and staged an exhibition
in Los Angeles.
The success of this led to a considerable upturn in interest about Szyk and his remarkable
body of work.
Gooche did the world an immense service by reviving awareness and appreciation of the
man and his achievements, and although still far from a household name, Arthur Szyk's memory
is likely to endure and hopefully delight future generations with his decorative prowess,
articulate satire and narrative abilities.