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Rahel Szalit-Marcus (2 July 1888 – August 1942) was a Jewish artist and illustrator. Born Rahel Markus in Telz
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Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...
region of Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, she was active in Berlin during the Weimar Republic and in Paris in the 1930s. She was best known for her illustrations of East European Jewish subjects. Szalit-Marcus was murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz in August 1942.
Life
Rahel Markus spent her later childhood years in
Łódź, Lodz and eventually acquired Polish citizenship. A native
Yiddish
Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
speaker, she also learned Polish, German, and French. In 1911, her parents sent her to
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
to study at the Art Academy. She moved to Berlin in 1916, becoming a member of the
November Group, a circle of young
avantgarde artists, and befriended Jewish artists
Henri Epstein and
Marcel Słodski. She also studied in Paris and
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. Rahel was married to actor Julius Szalit (born Julius Schalit in 1892) from 1915 until his death by suicide in 1919.
Rahel Szalit-Marcus lived in Berlin from 1916 to 1933, and from 1921 onwards she resided at Stübbenstrasse 3 in the Bavarian Quarter of
Schöneberg
Schöneberg () is a locality of Berlin, Germany. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a separate borough including the locality of Friedenau. Together with the former borough of Tempelhof it is now part of the new borough of Te ...
. She went by the name Rahel Szalit beginning in the mid-1920s. Her work appeared in several exhibitions of the
Berliner Secession, a German art movement that was established at the turn of the century. Szalit was acquainted with Jewish
Expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
artists
Ludwig Meidner
Ludwig Meidner (18 April 1884 – 14 May 1966) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker born in Bernstadt, Silesia. Meidner is best known for his painted, drawn, and printed portraits and landscapes, but is especially noted for his ...
and
Jakob Steinhardt, and she had the support of art historians Karl Schwarz and
Rachel Wischnitzer
Rachel Bernstein Wischnitzer (German: ''Rahel Wischnitzer-Bernstein''), (April 14, 1885 – November 20, 1989) was a Russian-born architect and art historian.
Biography
Wischnitzer was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Minsk, in Russia ...
, among others. Szalit spent time at well-known cafés frequented by artists and émigrés. She built connections to such intellectuals as Polish-German writer Eleonore Kalkowska. Szalit's lithographic images were at times compared to the work of
Käthe Kollwitz
Käthe Kollwitz ( born Schmidt; 8 July 186722 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' and ''The Peasa ...
.
Active in the Association of Women Artists in Berlin beginning in 1927, Szalit was able to exhibit her paintings and other work alongside such renowned artists as Käthe Kollwitz,
Lotte Laserstein,
Julie Wolfthorn, Käthe Münzer-Neumann,
Grete Csaki-Copony, and Else Haensgen-Dingkuhn.
She became better known internationally with a prizewinning painting in the 1929 exhibition ''Die Frau von heute''.
Szalit fled to France after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. She lived in
Montparnasse
Montparnasse () is an area in the south of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail. It is split betwee ...
, where she was affiliated with the
School of Paris
The School of Paris (, ) refers to the French and émigré artists who worked in Paris in the first half of the 20th century.
The School of Paris was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a centre o ...
.In June 1935, she gave a solo exhibition at the Galerie Zborowski (founded by
Léopold Zborowski
Léopold Zborowski (1889–1932) was a Polish poet, writer and art dealer.
Biography
He was born in Zaleszczyki, in what was then Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria of Austria-Hungary (now a part of Ukraine), to a Jewish family.
Zborowski and h ...
), and remained active in Paris through 1939.
In July 1942, Szalit-Marcus was arrested in the
Vel d'Hiv Roundup, and she was deported to Auschwitz in August 1942. Her Paris studio was plundered, and many of her original works were destroyed or lost.
Work
Rahel Szalit-Marcus was a painter and graphic artist known for her lithographic illustrations. She created oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings (in ink, pastel, and chalk), and she began to exhibit her paintings around 1920. In the early 1920s, she illustrated books and print portfolios, most of which have survived. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, she continued to paint, and her illustrations appeared in numerous periodicals.
Surviving Works: Illustrated Books and Print Portfolios
* Fyodor Dostoyevsky'',
Das Krokodil'', 1921
* Leo Tolstoy,
''Die Kreutzersonate'', 1922
* Sholem Aleichem, ''Menshelakh un stsenes'' (
''Motl, the Cantor's Son''), 1922 – portfolio
* Mendele Moykher Sforim, ''Fischke der Krumme'', 1922 – portfolio
* Hayim Nachman Bialik, ''Ketina Kol-bo'', 1923
* Charles Dickens, ''Londoner Bilder'' (stories from ''
Sketches by Boz
Sketch or Sketches may refer to:
* Sketch (drawing), a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work
Arts, entertainment and media
* Sketch comedy, a series of short scenes or vignettes called sketches
Fil ...
''), 1923
* Heinrich Heine, ''Hebräische Melodien'', 1923 – portfolio
* Claude Tillier, ''Mein Onkel Benjamin'', 1927
Gallery
File:Rachel Szalit-Marcus - Hebrew melodies, 1923.jpg, ''Hebrew melodies'', 1923
File:Rachel Szalit-Marcus Mentshelekh un stsenes 010.jpg, ''Motl the Cantor's Son'', 1922
File:Rachel Szalit-Marcus Die Schaffenden 010.jpg, ''Camel in the Desert'', 1926
References
Literature
* "Szalit, Rahel." The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, volume 10, (1943).
* "Rachel Szalit-Marcus." Jewish Virtual Library
* Hedwig Brenner, ''Jüdische Frauen in der bildenden Kunst. Ein biographisches Verzeichnis'', Vol. 2, ed. Erhard Roy Wiehn (Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre Verlag, 2004), 331–32.
* Anna Dzabagina, “Berlin’s Left Bank? Eleonore Kalkowska in Women’s Artistic Networks of Weimar Berlin” in ''Polish Avant-Garde in Berlin'', ed. Malgorzata Stolarksa-Fronia (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019), 151–69.
* Hersh Fenster, ''Undzere farpaynikte kinstler'' (Paris: H. Fenster, 1951), foreword by
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...
, 231-35.
* Hersh Fenster, ''Nos artistes martyrs'' (Paris: Hazan, 2021).
* Gerd Gruber, “Szalit, Rahel.” ''Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon. Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker''. Vol. 107 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 329.
* Sabine Koller, “''Mentshelekh un stsenes''. Rahel Szalit-Marcus illustriert Sholem Aleichem, in ''Leket'': ''Yiddish Studies Today'', ed. Marion Aptroot, Efrat Gal-Ed, Roland Gruschka, and Simon Neuberg (Düsselfdorf: Düsseldorf University Press, 2012), 207–31.
* Kerry Wallach, ''Passing Illusions: Jewish Visibility in Weimar Germany'' (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), 48–50.
* Kerry Wallach, ''Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit'' (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 2024).
External links
*
Works by Rahel Szalit at Jewish Museum BerlinWorks by Rahel Szalit at Jewish Historical Institute WarsawPolona Sitewith digitized images of Szalit's Motl illustrations
Musée d'art et d'histoire du JudaïsmeCenter for Jewish History"Rahel Szalit-Marcus and Solomon Gershov Illustrate Sholem Aleichem,"virtual exhibition of the Derfner Judaica Museum
Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen* Rahel Szalit-Marcus,
Artistes juifs de l'École de Paris'
Jewish illustrators
Jewish women painters
Jewish painters
Expressionist painters
Polish modern painters
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to France
Polish people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp
1888 births
1942 deaths
German Jews who died in the Holocaust
Polish Jews who died in the Holocaust
German people who died in Auschwitz concentration camp
20th-century German women artists
20th-century Polish women artists
German women illustrators
Polish women illustrators
German women painters
Polish women painters
Naturalized citizens of Poland
Polish portrait painters
German portrait painters
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