Sellin Resort Beach

‘A shameful business’. Taking the first steps towards a career in art was not easy for young people who had grown up in a traditional shtetl. Mark Antokolsky’s father discouraged his son’s interest in making sculptures from clay and wood, and sent him to learn about carpentry instead. The parents of Lazar Krestin and Emmanuel Mané-Katz wanted their sons to become rabbis. Family arguments and the negative view of artists among the religious Jewish community as ‘drunkards and scruffy types who either die of consumption or go crazy’ made many young people leave home early.

The 13-year-old Moshe Maimon was sent by his religious parents to learn the watchmaker’s trade, in spite of their son’s desire to become an artist. Maimon recalled: ‘My inclination towards art was not only not recognised or encouraged by my family, it was also scorned and ridiculed. And the Rebbe called my aspirations nothing but пacкудное дело [a shameful business]’ (the MS ‘Тернистый путь’, Jewish Museum, Moscow). Maimon was one of the first Litvak painters and printmakers. Few of his works have survived. Two lithographs in the Ellex Valiunas collection depict the island of Rügen in Germany. One of them depicts Lake Herthasee, steeped in legend, where the Germanic earth goddess Hertha used to bathe once a year. No one was allowed to see the goddess, and those who assisted her during her bathing were then drowned in the lake. The other lithograph depicts the beach at the Sellin resort with a pier reaching into the Baltic Sea.

Text author Vilma Gradinskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album STORIES OF LITVAK ART (2023). Compiler and author Vilma Gradinskaitė
Expositions: “Académie de Vilna. Vilnius Drawing School (1866–1915)”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Jolanta Širkaitė). Published: Académie de Vilna: Vilniaus piešimo mokykla 1866-1915 / Vilnius drawing school: Exhibition Catalogue, Nacionalinė dailės galerija 2017 m. 4 d. - lapkričio 26 d., compiled by Jolanta Širkaitė, Vilnius: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas, 2017, p. 270.

‘A shameful business’. Taking the first steps towards a career in art was not easy for young people who had grown up in a traditional shtetl. Mark Antokolsky’s father discouraged his son’s interest in making sculptures from clay and wood, and sent him to learn about carpentry instead. The parents of Lazar Krestin and Emmanuel Mané-Katz wanted their sons to become rabbis. Family arguments and the negative view of artists among the religious Jewish community as ‘drunkards and scruffy types who either die of consumption or go crazy’ made many young people leave home early.

The 13-year-old Moshe Maimon was sent by his religious parents to learn the watchmaker’s trade, in spite of their son’s desire to become an artist. Maimon recalled: ‘My inclination towards art was not only not recognised or encouraged by my family, it was also scorned and ridiculed. And the Rebbe called my aspirations nothing but пacкудное дело [a shameful business]’ (the MS ‘Тернистый путь’, Jewish Museum, Moscow). Maimon was one of the first Litvak painters and printmakers. Few of his works have survived. Two lithographs in the Ellex Valiunas collection depict the island of Rügen in Germany. One of them depicts Lake Herthasee, steeped in legend, where the Germanic earth goddess Hertha used to bathe once a year. No one was allowed to see the goddess, and those who assisted her during her bathing were then drowned in the lake. The other lithograph depicts the beach at the Sellin resort with a pier reaching into the Baltic Sea.

Text author Vilma Gradinskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album STORIES OF LITVAK ART (2023). Compiler and author Vilma Gradinskaitė
Expositions: “Académie de Vilna. Vilnius Drawing School (1866–1915)”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Jolanta Širkaitė). Published: Académie de Vilna: Vilniaus piešimo mokykla 1866-1915 / Vilnius drawing school: Exhibition Catalogue, Nacionalinė dailės galerija 2017 m. 4 d. - lapkričio 26 d., compiled by Jolanta Širkaitė, Vilnius: Lietuvos kultūros tyrimų institutas, 2017, p. 270.