Nathan Altman (1889-1970) – Large Collection of Original Illustrations and Sketches for an Edition of Sholem ...

Nathan Altman (1889-1970) – Large Collection of Original Illustrations and Sketches for an Edition of Sholem Aleichem's Complete Works – With Certification from Dmitry Malakhovsky (Altman's Stepson)

Collection of approximately 75 original illustrations, sketches, and drafts by Nathan Altman, for a Russian edition of Sholem Aleichem's works. [Russia, ca. late 1940s]. Pencil and ink on paper.

Includes about 25 plates with illustrations titled, dated, and signed at the margins of the plate – "H.A. 48" [Nathan Altman, 1948], as well as a notebook comprising some fifty drafts and preparatory illustrations (drawn in pencil).

The illustrations were originally intended for an edition of Sholem Aleichem's complete works in Yiddish, planned for publication in 1948. However, following the dissolution of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the intensification of persecutions against Jewish cultural figures, this edition was never realized. Most of the drafts and illustrations were eventually printed in a Russian edition of Sholem Aleichem's works: С ярмарки – Рассказы [From the Fair – Stories], published in Moscow in 1957, edited by the writer and translator Rivka Rubina (Ривка Рубина).

This edition includes, among others, some of Sholem Aleichem's best-known works, including the autobiography "From the Fair", and stories from his books "Poor and Happy", "Monologues", "Railroad Stories", "Tales for Jewish Children", "Song of Songs", and more (a copy of this Russian edition is enclosed; however, some of the illustrations in the draft notebook do not appear in the enclosed volume).

Enclosed is a certificate signed by Prof. Dmitry Malakhovsky (Дмитрий Брониславович Малаховский; 1932-2010), Nathan Altman's nephew and stepson [his mother Maria and Altman's third wife, Irina, were sisters – both daughters of the Russian clergyman Valentin Ternavtsev (Валентин Александрович Тернавцев; 1866-1940). After the death of both his parents in Stalin's purges in the 1930s and 1940s, Dmitry was adopted by his aunt and uncle, Irina and Nathan Altman].

In the certificate dated February 27, 2002, Prof. Malakhovsky attests that the illustrations were created by Nathan Altman in 1948 and came into his possession after the death of his stepmother Irina Ternavtseva (Ирина Валентиновна Тернавцева; 1906-1993).

A similar certification is also written at the end of the draft notebook (in pencil).

[25] plates + draft notebook. Size and condition vary. Overall good condition. Placed in a folder.

Nathan Altman (Натан Исаевич Альтман; 1889-1970), born in Vinnytsia (present-day Ukraine), an avant-garde artist, painter, graphic designer, sculptor, book illustrator and stage designer. His varied work belongs to various styles – Cubism, Constructivism, Futurism, and Suprematism – and reflects the many changes in his world, both artistic and political.

He began his art studies in Odessa; in 1910 he moved to Paris, where he continued his studies and associated with the artists of the "Machmadim" group which advocated Zionist Jugendstil. In 1912, Altman returned to Russia and settled in St. Petersburg. He spent the summer of 1913 sketching reliefs found on Jewish tombstones and developing a Cubist style based on Jewish folk art. At that time, he founded a Jewish Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. Altman was an enthusiastic supporter of the Bolshevik revolution, after which he was appointed a member of the IZO-Narkompros (the Department of Fine Arts of the People's Commissariat for Education). In 1919, he became one of the prominent artists of the "Kom-Fut" group (Communist Futurists). He worked for the Monumental Propaganda plan conceived by Lenin, and created agitprop art.

During the early 1920s, Altman worked as a stage designer for HaBimah Theater and the Jewish State Theater Goset. His Constructivist costume design for the play "The Dybbuk", staged by HaBimah Theater in 1922, incorporated elements taken from Jewish folk and religious art; and his stage design for the Goset production of "Uriel da Costa" was his most advanced Constructivist work at the time. In 1922, his works were exhibited at the "First Russian Art Exhibition" in Berlin and alongside works by Chagall and Sternberg in the "Exhibition of the Three" of the Kultur Lige group. In the early 1920s, Altman was a prominent artist whose works expressed the spirit of the party and the revolution – the rebellion against the old degenerate order – and in this capacity he created a series of sketches and a bust of Lenin. In 1928, Altman went on a tour with the Goset theater and remained in Paris until 1935. While there, the Party's attitude towards art went through a transformation. Already in the mid-1920s the party began furthering socialist realism and restricting the activity of avant-garde groups, claiming art should serve defined goals, be simple and understood by everyone and portray the beauty of communist reality. In 1932, with Altman still out of the country, the central committee of the communist party banned any union of independent artists. From then on, the party imposed its new and preferred style, socialist realism, and avant-garde was pushed to the new status of "bourgeois" art, enemy of the revolution. Returning to Russia in 1936, Altman settled in Leningrad, and as an undesirable artist worked mainly as a graphic designer, book illustrator and stage designer, trying to adhere to the party's new line.

Literature: Russian Jewish Artists in a Century of Change 1890-1990, edited by Susan Tomarkin Goodman. Prestel Publishing, Munich / New York, 1995. p. 146.