New York artist Mark Podwal phoned a bit breathlessly. He had just received one of his frequent assignments — on a one-day deadline — from The New York Times for a sketch to run with an op-ed article by an Israeli journalist.
At 8 o’clock that morning, he had met with Elie Wiesel to discuss the illustrations he was doing for Wiesel’s upcoming book on Queen Esther.
Podwal also wanted to talk about a new calendar by the Jewish Museum in Prague with 17 of his illustrations and make mention of his one-man show at the Forum Gallery in Los Angeles.
And in between, Dr. Podwal had to attend to his dermatology practice.
The Forum Gallery exhibit, titled “Of Times and Seasons,” which opened Sept. 12, features Podwal’s original gouache and acrylic works on paper that were reproduced in the Prague calendar, along with recent watercolors.
Most of the exhibited paintings “evoke the singular mystical landscape of Jewish Prague” and were inspired by the ritual objects in the museum’s collection, Podwal told The Journal.
A particularly striking work shows Prague’s Old-New Synagogue aloft on an angel’s wing, recalling the legend that the shul was built with stones from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.
Another illustration shows the famed Prague Jewish town hall in the shape of a spicebox, and a third celebrates Purim costumes with two celebrants wearing hamentaschen.
Wiesel, Podwal’s longtime collaborator, tells readers that if you like to dream, then enter the dreams of Mark Podwal. “He will lead you through the centuries as through a gallery, where you are awaited by a world both strange and familiar,” the author wrote, “a world forever united with a pen which, with a rare finesse, recounts the stories of yesterday and today and of all days. For not only is he an artist, a keen-sighted and incisive commentator who adds an elevated dimension to details, but a storyteller who explains and charms as much as he instructs.
“His stories, sometimes joyful and sometimes melancholic, are recounted in a style and language quite his own; they will make you smile,” Wiesel continued. “Through them you will discover recollections which — without your being aware — are part of your collective memory.”
The 56-year old artist, who describes himself as a “fast and focused workman,” has some seven books to his credit and has collaborated on another 12 books, almost all on Jewish themes.
Among his upcoming projects are illustrations for a children’s haggadah by Jack Prelutsky and drawings for a new edition of Isaac Leib Peretz’s telling of the classic story “The Golem.”
As a medical student at New York University in the late 1960s, Podwal cut his teeth on anti-Vietnam war cartoons.
Given his dual medical and artistic bents, Podwal took a teacher’s advice to forgo the stressful demands of surgery and specialize in the less time-consuming field of dermatology.
Concurrent with the gallery exhibit, the Skirball Cultural Center will display two of Podwal’s works from its permanent collection, “Zodiac Circle” and “Life Circle.”
The Forum Gallery exhibit will run through Oct. 13 at 8069 Beverly Blvd. (at Crescent Heights Blvd.), (323) 655-1550. The Skirball display will run Sept. 11-Oct. 18, (310) 440-4500. The Prague calendar, in English and Hebrew, can be previewed and ordered through the Web sitewww.jewishmuseum.cz.
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