Jewish agricultural colonization in the USSR .. The sequel

Issachar Ber Ryback: «Evening Mood» and «Synagogue in the Barrack». Album of lithographs «On the Jewish Fields of Ukraine» (1926).
The graphic album «On the Jewish Fields of Ukraine», published in Paris in 1926, resulted from a two-month journey by Issachar Ber Ryback through the Jewish colonies of Kherson region and Crimea in the summer of 1925.
Before his brief return to the Soviet Union, the artist spent three years in Berlin, where he, besides participating in modernist associations, worked with promotional materials design for ORT. This charity was dedicated to providing Eastern European Jews with the skills and equipment needed to work in industry and agriculture. Collaboration with ORT allowed Ryback an insight into the process of agricultural colonization taking place in the USSR and likely sparked in him the interest in seeing the experiment with his own eyes.
In previous lithographic albums, such as «Shtetl. My destroyed home: a Memory (1923)», Ryback sought to convey the experience of Jewish life in the shtetl through a specific formal vocabulary. Dark tones, expressionistic distortion of figures, and a violation of traditional perspective created gloomy images based on the ever-present threat of pogroms. In contrast, the idea of the Jewish rebirth on soil, proposed in the Paris album, relied on soft strokes, a high-key tone, and greater naturalism. Read more...