Modernism was already all the rage when Arthur Szyk arrived in Paris. The young Polish Jew came to the City of Light to study art and left unmoved by Cubism, Surrealism and the other isms of the 1920s. Szyk looked instead to late medieval illuminated manuscripts and Persian miniatures. He became famous during the 1940s for satirizing the evils of his time, especially the great dictators, in imagery that blended the 16th century with the 20th.
“Arthur Szyk: The Art of Illumination,” on exhibit at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, offers a modest sample of work by the prolific illustrator and cartoonist. Acclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a “soldier in art” for wielding his pen like a bayonet during World War II, Szyk is best known for his fervid magazine cover caricatures of Hitler and his cronies, including the grotesquely corpulent Reich Marshal Hermann Göring; the gaunt faced, rodent-eared Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels; and the jutting-jawed Duce, Benito Mussolini. Szyk drew controversy by calling out hypocrisy in his adopted American homeland. In one cartoon, two black GIs are asked what they would do with Hitler. “I would have made him a negro and dropped him somewhere in the U.S,” they answer.
Ironically, Szyk fell prey to one form of racism while combating so many others. Several (not all) of his wartime depictions of Japanese render them monkey-like and subhuman.
The theme of resisting oppression running through Szyk’s work arose from his deep emersion in Judaism and Jewish history. Much of “The Art of Illumination” is devoted to Judaica, including colorfully painted, carefully detailed, profusely ornamented depictions of Jewish holidays and biblical scenes. Szyk wove 20th-century imagery into some of his representations of mythic struggles for human dignity.
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“The Art of Illumination” is drawn from the collection of Irvin Ungar, a rabbi and dealer in rare manuscripts who, according to the Jewish Museum’s curator Molly Dubin, has led the effort to revive interest in Szyk. The artist was almost forgotten after his death in 1951, relegated to the margins as art history marched relentlessly through new isms toward disconnection from political, social and spiritual concerns. Nowadays, with so many isms left behind as the world moves toward an uncertain future, Szyk’s historically grounded art as commentary seems prescient.
“The Art of Illumination” runs through May 15 at Jewish Museum Milwaukee, 1360 N. Prospect Ave. For more information, visit jewishmuseummilwaukee.org.
