Lot 117A email save

LISSITZKY, El [Lazar Markovich] (1890-1941) (illu

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Kiev and St. Petersburg: Yidisher Folks Ferlag, 1919. 12pp., small 4to bound in 6s (215 x 167 mm). Illustration to first page, 8 other illustrations, all after Lissitzky. Folded and stapled. Condition: overall toning. Provenance: purple ink stamps to first and last pages "Perevireno 1948 g." ["Removed 1948"] on the final page, smudged stamp on the first page and repeated on p.10. first and only edition of this rare yiddish children's book illustrated by lissitzky. Although they have been largely ignored until recently, Lissitzky illustrated a number of delightful avant-garde Yiddish children's books. In 1919, he and Raskin signed a contract with Yidisher Folks Ferlag in Kiev to produce eleven titles in their "Kinder Gartn" or Kindergarten series. Only three (including Der Bar) were published. The cover of each title sports the same abstract picture of a rooster on a roof crowing. Lissitzky's playful child-like drawings adroitly combined traditional and modernist elements. The "removed" stamps indicate that book was banned in 1948 when Stalin outlawed Yiddish and Hebrew. Consequently few of these fragile pamphlets survive. Apter-Gabriel 94.

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