"The Book of Things" – Chaim Nachman Bialik and Tom Seidmann-Freud – Jerusalem-Berlin, 1922

"The Book of Things" – Chaim Nachman Bialik and Tom Seidmann-Freud – Jerusalem-Berlin, 1922
Sefer HaDvarim [The Book of Things], sixteen poems by Chaim Nachman Bialik and sixteen illustrations by Tom Seidmann-Freud. Jerusalem-Berlin: "Ophir", 1922.
Sixteen short illustrated poems, the fruit of collaboration between Tom Seidmann-Freud, her spouse, the industrialist and publisher Ya'akov Seidmann, and Chaim Nachman Bialik. The three established the "Ophir" publishing house for Hebrew children's books in Berlin. This book was one of the few books written by Bialik and illustrated by Seidmann-Freud to be published before the closure of the publishing house.
The illustrations of Tom Seidmann-Freud (1892-1930), a Jewish Vienna-born writer and illustrator, were characterized by their stylistic simplicity and wealth of expression. The clean, serious illustrations, colored using the pochoir technique which gives them the transparency of watercolors, heralded the Art Deco style. In few lines, which are simultaneously not childish but easily understood by children, they tell a complete story.
[35] pp, 21 cm. Good-fair condition. Re-bound by sewing with the original boards. The first leaf (with the logo of the publishing house and its details) was glued to the binding. Trimmed margins. Blemishes caused by gluing on the inside of the first leaf. Library stamps. Pen notation on the title page. Minor blemishes. Stains. Abrasions to the binding and several places inside the book. Color stickers on several of the illustration leaves.
Literature: Hebrew Illustrations, the Illustrated Hebrew Book for Children, the International Era 1900-1925 (Hebrew), by Ayala Gordon. Tel-Aviv: Nachum Gutman Museum, 2005. pp. 127-141.
Provenance: The Raphael Grünzweig Collection.