The Szyk Haggadah

Artist Arthur Szyk (American (born in Poland), 1894 - 1951)

Printer Rick De Coyte, Silicon Gallery Fine Art Prints

Binder Paul Vogel

Publisher Irvin Ungar

Date2008 (originally published in 1940)

DimensionsH: 11 in. (27.9 cm); W: 9.35 in. (23.7 cm)

MediumEight color giclée printing.

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineMrs. George W. Stevens Fund

Object number

2012.100

Not on View

DescriptionTwo books housed in a clamshell box. The Haggadah consists of 96 pages, printed on one side of the sheet as double leaves, with the fold on the fore-edge. The companion volume is composed of approximately 160 pages, sewn and bound in quarter leather. This premier edition of the Haggadah is bound in full blue leather with a colorful channel inlay and Szyk’s own ornamental signature stamped in gilt on the front cover. It also features a suite of twelve individual prints in a special portfolio compartment.

Label TextOriginally published in 1940, the Szyk Haggadah was declared, by the Times Literary Supplement, as “worthy to be placed among the most beautiful of books that the hand of man has produced.” The vibrantly colored and masterfully drawn illustrations, often set in foliated and geometric borders, are indeed reminiscent of Byzantine and Romanesque illuminated manuscripts produced during the apex of book illustration in the Middle Ages. Arthur Szyk was born in Łódź, Poland where he became a popular book illustrator, illuminator, and cartoonist. He achieved international prominence during World War II by producing hundreds of anti-Axis and anti-Nazi illustrations and cartoons. For his singular efforts during the war Szyk was praised as a “Soldier in Art” by the Roosevelt administration.