Patriot with Paint

“Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom,” a new exhibit at the University of Judaism, celebrates the legacy of the Lodz-born Szyk, who, although he was born in 1894, centuries after the Middle Ages, produced intricately adorned paintings echoing the style of medieval illuminated manuscripts. The artist, who was schooled with Marc Chagall, was honored by the League of Nations before his death in 1951.

This exhibit naturally leans heavily on samples of Jewish-themed work, an area in which he was prolific. Images from his famous haggadah hang alongside a holiday series that lionizes all of the major Jewish holidays and its revelers. “Jew Before a Polish Ruler” and paintings based on the Statutes of Kalisz (“the Jewish Magna Carta”) underscore themes inspired from his native Poland.

A wall is dedicated to a particularly compelling series of miniature collotype lithographs, “George Washington and his Times (1930-31).”

In 1935, Polish President Ignacy Moscicki found this series so impressive that he purchased the originals and presented them as a gift to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (the originals hung in the White House and are now at Hyde Park). This intersection of medieval style and American Revolutionary War iconography casts an arcane effect. Benjamin Franklin and Rochambeau, the general who led the French forces against Britain, are commemorated in one image. Others illustrate historical moments such as the Boston Massacre and the battles at Lexington and Concord, depicting violently tangled heaps of redcoats and patriots locked in combat. Szyk also dropped in Pulaski and Koszuiszko, Polish heroes who fought alongside America, into this series.

The Szyk show has its curveballs, such as “Indian Negotiations, Polish American Fraternity,” and the artist’s penchant for depicting Hitler and Nazi commanders as porcine oafs in political cartoons. Szyk’s flare for caricature endeared him to magazines, as an Esquire illustration and the Nov. 1, 1941, Collier’s cover prove. “Rewolucja Niemczeck” (1919), the first book he ever supplied drawings for, demonstrates his natural gift for whimsical illustrations. His figures, even in his paintings, were always varnished with a sheen of caricature, giving an almost burlesque quality to the proceedings.

“Visual History of Nations” shows Szyk having fun with international iconography of the major world powers. The homage to Russia, for example, is adorned with the likenesses of Peter the Great and Lenin, and Israel depicts a young soldier from the War of Independence.

Szyk obviously connected with that archetype Israeli soldier – a symbol of strength, autonomy and freedom. It surfaces often in his Israeli-themed work and pops up again in “Proclamation of Independence of the State of Israel,” an embellished document graced with handsome Hebrew calligraphy. In the new state of Israel, Szyk’s images adorned postage stamps.

Living in the United States and Canada throughout World War II, Szyk was devastated by the annihilation faced by his brethren in Europe, and he used his art to become an outspoken critic of oppression. The final words of the Gettysburg Address inserted in his “Four Freedoms” – “That the government of the people by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth” – is an articulation of the simple ideals he championed. Whether reacting to a country’s fascism or celebrating a country’s culture, Szyk’s work swelled with this affinity for independence and liberty. But to behold Szyk’s art is to find that the beauty of these ideals lies in the details.

“Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom” runs at the Marjorie & Herman Platt Gallery and the Borstein Gallery, University of Judaism, through Dec. 3.