Dora Szampanier, Etching of destroyed synagogue - Drohobisz, Ukraine

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Cracow Poland Etching of Polish Synagogue, Jewish temple. From very rare small edition. Most are signed in Hebrew and /or … Read more Cracow Poland Etching of Polish Synagogue, Jewish temple. From very rare small edition. Most are signed in Hebrew and /or English. some are marked AP some are numbered. please see photos. Dora Szampanier (Shampanier, nee Mondschein) born 1922, a Jewish emigrant exiled in Russia during the Second World War, who after the holocaust dedicated herself to recover lithographs in support of Main synagogues of Europe, which were looted, destroyed or reconverted during the Nazi rule. Many on Kristallnacht (“the night of broken glass”) a well-organized “pogrom”, a series of violent attacks by Nazis against Jews and their property in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. “Pogromnacht” (or Reichspogromnacht) is a truer description; the “prettier sounding” Kristallnacht hides the brutality of “the night of (broken) crystal” referring to broken shattered glass from windows to synagogues, homes, and stores owned by Jews. From a series of handmade etching prints of Jewish synagogues, located across Europe (some from Middle East and North Africa) in Poland, Russia, (Soviet Union), Ukraine, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Algiers, Iraq, Egypt, & Turkey. Apparently privately published in a very small limited edition. From the artist's notes: "These synagogues were architectural assets, unique in their variegated originality, that served a special religious tendency for the jewish communities in their hostile environment, combining a modest exterior with internal magnificence. The horrible Holocaust that came down on our people, uprooted with it a whole chapter of history including its culture, ways of life, traditions and customs. The remnants of the jewish synagogues, reminder to the magnificent styling, the exceptional beauty and the authentic architecture (influenced by numerous factors) fascinated me and captured my attention, through them I passed my feelings to the metal, trying to perpetuate the lights and shadows, the simplicity and the sophistication, the splendor and the modesty, the materialistic past and the spiritual inheritance. With a sacred obligation and a deep sorrow I hereby present to the public in Israel and abroad, the fruits of my work. May they serve as a tombstone to the holy and precious, built by the jewish communities with devotion and love, and destroyed by world villains with malignity and hatred". Biography: Dora Szampanier was born in 1922 in Yaroslaw, Poland. She graduated from high school before the second world war. Just before the war she was expelled with her family to Siberia where she passed the war. In 1945 she married Dr. Jacob Szampanier and in 1950 they immigrated to Israel and settled down in Haifa. After raising 2 children she returned in 1983 to the university. As part of her interest in the arts she took painting, drawing, history of the arts and general history. In 1985 she started etching and focused her interest in commemoration of synagogues in a sort of Naive, Folk Art style. (Hebrew religious buildings) destroyed in the holocaust. In 1989 she was accepted as a member of the Israeli Association of Painters & Sculptures. Exhibitions: VISUAL ART THE LIFE OF THE SZTETL IN THE ART OF POLISH JEWS IN THE XX. Artists whose works are shown at the exhibition combine two common features: they were all born in the lands that once belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although after 1815 they were finally annexed by Russia, Prussia or Austro-Hungary. Few, they had Polish citizenship. Everyone was also born in a shtetl or had parents coming from a shtetl. Sometimes from the ghetto. And, although their fates were very different, the overwhelming need to preserve the shtetl in memory, played an important role in their art. They interpreted the past into different, often contrasting ways. For some, the life of a small town could only be presented with realistic details, sometimes enhanced by an expressive combination of colors (Abel Pann, Józef Budko, Hermann Struck, Szymon Karczmar, Stanisław Bender, Samuel Tepler), for others the idealization and mythologization seemed the only form of collective memory (Ephraim Moshe Lilien, Marc Chagall, Moshe Bernstein, Adam Muszka, Feliks Fabian, Devi Tuszyński). This contrast between the reality of perception and the nostalgia of memories is one of the most important effects of the trauma caused by exile. For artists who survived the Holocaust, the additional stimulus of creative expression was the awareness that with their death the memory of the shtetl would die. Present in the works of art: tradition, religion, family and community, are recurring motifs in the works of selected 37 painters and graphic artists from around the world. These works describe everyday and festive rituals, professions, religious and social life, but also studies of the figures of rabbis, scholars, craftsmen and ordinary inhabitants of small towns. They allow with a great deal of diversity to look into the depths of the world that existed for centuries and was destroyed during the World War. The exhibition, apart from independent painting works, graphics and drawings, also shows prints. One of the most original forms of expression of Jewish painters and graphic artists in the early twentieth century was a book and press illustration in Yiddish and Hebrew publishing houses (and their translations into German and French). Especially noteworthy are the achievements of Lilien in Vienna, Józef Budka, Herman Struck and Jakob Steinhardt in Berlin and Marc Chagall in Paris. ARTISTS Jankel Adler, Benn, Boris Deutsch, Feliks Fabian (Goldberg), David Garfinkiel (Gerfinkiel) Todros Geller, Henryk (Enoch) Glicenstein, Chaim Goldberg, Chaim Gross, Artur Kolnik, Ilya Schor, Dora Szampanier (Shampanier), Samuel Wodnicki, Fiszel Zylberberg (Zber), Jakub Jacques Zucker and Frank Meisler. Several cities in France, Italy and Spain have exhibited this series with the purpose of spreading the rich cultural legacy, adding to the common goal of helping the conservation and rehabilitation of Jewish heritage in Europe, along with activities such as guided tours of the Jewish quarters, conferences, debates and concerts. In Spain, the activity was developed in collaboration with the Federation of Israelite Communities, focusing on the cities that belong to the Network of Jewish Quarters-Roads of Sefarad, an association that aims to defense of the artistic and cultural heritage of the Sephardic legacy in the Iberian Peninsula. Cáceres, Córdoba, Girona, Hervás, Oviedo, Ribadavia, Segovia, Toledo, Tortosa and Tudela, Castelló D "Empúries and Besalú (Girona), Barcelona and Madrid have joined to this initiative. Coinciding with the program, called Discovering Jewish Culture in Europe, an exhibition of lithographs donated by Dora Szampanier has been presented at the College of Architects of Segovia, where images of synagogues destroyed during the holocaust are recalled. See less