Alexander Schawinsky, 1904–1979, multi-genre, multi-media, Bauhaus-influenced artist-dynamo.
Xanti Schawinsky was born in Basel, Switzerland. After a short time, studying in Berlin, he enrolled in the Bauhaus in Weimar where Albers, Gropius, Kandinsky, Klee and Moholy-Nagy were among his teachers. In addition to drawing and painting, his pursuits included those of a performer, musician and stage designer. Schwawinsky left Germany for Italy in 1933, where he founded an advertising studio and created what we today consider classic posters and product designs of the 1930s. In 1935 he left Italy for London and in 1936, London for the United States. Interestingly, he worked on the 1939 World’s Fair (North Carolina and Pennsylvania pavilions). He lived, work and taught in New York during the 1940s and 50s, spending more and more time in Europe after 1961.
Schawinsky was featured in the April 1937 edition of PM Magazine and during his time in New York, surely had typesetting done at The Composing Room. This print, The Lovers, is presumably a wedding gift.
The Lovers by Xanti Schawinsky, 1951. Inscribed to Hortense and Ismar, 1953.
Robert Boyajian, 1928–2019, graphic designer, calligrapher, art director.
Rhode Island born Bob Boyajian entered the Navy upon his graduation from High School. After his discharge, he studied at the School of Practical Art (later the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University), one of the first private studio schools in the country. Graduating with honors, he spent 40 years as a commercial artist in New York, beginning as a lettering artist for the Norcross Greeting Card Company and moving to J. Walter Thompson, where he eventually became an art director. He freelanced for many years for clients such as Cartier, Macy’s, Tiffany and the New York Public Library. He conducted many workshops in calligraphy. Left-handed himself, he was especially helpful guiding other left-handers. In 1996, he retired to Rhode Island, where he stayed creatively active.
John DePol, 1913–2004, wood engraver, illustrator.
Upon the early death of his father, John DePol left high school and went to work to help support his mother and two younger siblings. He had always been a keen sketcher and became fascinated by etching he saw in a shop window near where he worked. He taught himself etching and printing and in the Spring of 1935 made his own first print using a manually operated clothes wringer. He learned lithography nights at the Art Students League of New York and studied briefly at the College of Art in Belfast while he was stationed there during WWII, but he remained largely self-taught. After his return to civilian life, he married Thelma Rotha and worked on Wall Street and then for a commercial printing firm. However he continued making prints and refining his skills, to become one of the premier wood engravers of his time. His prolific output includes innumerable independent works as well as collaborations with The Allen Press, The Pickering Press, Hammer Creek Press and the Typophiles, whose meetings he attended with his wife Thelma. In old age, he looked as noble as any American monument and as finely-chiseled as one of his own engravings.
Graphos Stationery, shop on Julian’s Way (later, 1 Kind David Street), Jerusalem
According to his immigration documents, Heinz Freudenthal, “merchant.”, was born in 1909 in Breslau and arrived in Palestine on June 4, 1936. He founded Graphos, which was for many years the best shop for artist and draughting supplies in Jerusalem. Saul Bellow recounts how, after the sidewalk on King David Street had been narrowed, a traffic light was installed directly in front of the store. Old Mr. Freudenthal comlained and Teddy Kolleck personally intervened to get it removed.1Bellow, Saul, To Jerusalem and Back. Viking Press 1976, New York, NY, p. 112.
In 1943, Ismar David designed the interior of the shop. On December 7, 1952, Heinz Freudenthal registered the trademark that Ismar David designed for him. The two had a family connection as well. Heinz Freudenthal’s father, Siegfried, was the brother of Rosa Freudenthal’s husband. Rosa Freudenthal was Elise Graetzer Freund’s sister.
Letter from Heinz Freudenthal, Graphos Stationery, Jerusalem. Ismar David papers, box 1, folder 2, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.
May 30, 1958
Dear Imi,
Although you are some kilometers away from me, I want to ask your advice: my store is still almost unchanged [from] how you set it up just 15 years ago. Since I now work almost completely alone, I need a sales table in which, as I envision it, there are English characteristics, where the customer can see a larger selection by looking over the sales table, and at the same time, I can sell a larger variety of articles from this sales table.
I am looking now for a drawing of a sales table and wanted to ask you whether and how you can help me and if you want to. Store furnishings that I often see pictured in our industry newspapers are meant for larger and wider stores. I would be very grateful to you if you would send me an answer soon, because I would like to use the summer months for construction, if possible.
Many heartfelt thanks and best regards, also to your wife,
At the age of seventeen, Yossi Stern managed to flee to Palestine from his native Hungary. He studied at the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, gaining recognition as an artist in the last years of the British Mandate. Mayor Teddy Kolleck called him the “Painter of Jerusalem.” He depicted his beloved city in cartoons, illustrations & paintings, in books and hometown newspapers, including Yediot Ahronot and Davar. He made news himself, when he came out as gay in the mid 1980s. He suffered a second heart attack in 1992 and died one month later.
A business card of artist Yossi Stern, Jerusalem.
Yossi Stern worked with Ismar David on the Hagana newspaper, The Defender, which was issued from December 1948 – April 1949. The two artists collaborated on posters during this time.
Herrmann M. Z. Meyer, 1901–1972, bibliophile, collector, publisher, a founder of the Soncino-Gesellschaft in Berlin, proprietor of Universitas Booksellers in Jerusalem.
Herrmann M.Z. Meyer in front of his store, circa 1946. Signage designed by Ismar David.
Berlin-born Herrmann M.Z. Meyer had already acquired a significant collection of books and graphics by the time he began his law studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University (today Humboldt University) in his home city. The twenty-three year old had the idea to create a society of friends of the Hebrew book and founded the Soncino-Gesellschaft with Abraham Horodisch and Moses Marx, both publishers. The first and only Jewish bibliophile society in Germany had over 800 members, including many institutions and 21 women, and published a journal. Its more than 100 published works encompassed a wide variety of literary content, including most ambitiously, a Hebrew Bible with a proprietary typeface. Meyer, its official secretary and behind-the-scenes editor, was considered its soul and driving force.
The political situation forced Meyer, his wife and daughter to leave Germany for France in 1934. An attempt at starting a bookstore in Paris failed and the family moved to Amsterdam. In 1935 they left Holland for Jerusalem, where Meyer opened Universitas Booksellers. A reporter for the Palestine Post described the 10, 000 books “on the floor, on shelves, benches and tables.”1Roundabout by the Postman,The Palestine Post, April 16, 1936, p. 6.
Dr. Meyer has been engaged in book collection for only 15 years, as he is still a young man. “How did you find so many rare gems in such a short space of time?” we asked. “One would expect you to have a long beard.”
“My beard grows inside my face” he responded. “And books have a way of coming from great distances to those who love them.”
Because Dr. Meyer does love them, his books tenaciously refuse to look like articles for sale. Thus his “shop” retains the air of a library. Hours pass like minutes when browsing through the rooms. One comes across the Divine Comedy of Dante printed in Venice in 1757 for the Empress of Russia, Petrowna. The four volumes are bound in parchment gone yellow.2Roundabout by the Postman,Ibid.
Interior of Universitas Booksellers.
Interior of Universitas Booksellers, showing a variety of English language art and literature books.
In 1936, Meyer moved his store to 7 Princess Mary Avenue, now Shlomzion ha-Malka Street. Ismar David designed various graphics for Universitas, as well as outdoor signage for the store in 1936 and for its renovation in 1946. He also designed a personal bookplate for Herrmann Meyer. In 1955 Meyer wrote to David.
Letter from Herrmann M. Z. Meyer, 1955.
21.1.55
Dear Ismar David,
I learned your address by chance and am shameless enough, despite being out of contact for years, to turn to you with a request for advice and support.
In the same airmail post, I’m sending you a few examples of greeting cards I made. I intend to sell something similar for the coming Rosh Ha-Shanah and New Year to American firms, who want to send their clients an acknowledgement like this that seems extraordinary. I can print the name of the firm and desired text directly here in Jerusalem and send them by mail with an Israeli postage stamp, validated with a special postmark. This special mail cancellation mark with contain a greeting in English.
I believe that such a unique, and despite its prominence, very distinguished advertisement would be of interest for many big firms, not just for markedly Jewish companies, but rather also much more for Christian business. The price for an order of 500 is upwards of 80 cents to $1 to per piece. A smaller format, about half of that.
Now, I believe that the canvassing for clients cannot be carried out from here. I don’t think that you are involved with the commercial side of advertising—or am I mistaken?—but otherwise you surely know the addresses from a few big publicity agents who manage the accounts of important firms. Would you be so kind and advise me in this? Your help with this would be very valuable and I thank you most heartily in advance.
Most cordially, Your Meyer P.S. What are the usual fees for a publicity agent?
Helen Rossi Koussevitzky, 1906–1990, Palestine Post editor, founder of various charitable funds, including the Post Toy Drive and Forsake Me Not campaign (to help the elderly).
Helen Rossi in Jerusalem, in charge of public relations for food control for the Mandatory government, circa 1942. Photos of Helen Rossi courtesy of Dan Koussevitzky.
The youngest of three Feinberg sisters in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Helen Rossi—the name that stuck with her for her entire career—studied at New York University and Cornell, before studying drama at Yale. She first visited Palestine in 1929 and returned to stay in 1934. After several years, she began working in the advertising department of the Palestine Post, later becoming an editor. She founded her own firm, R & S Public Relations.
She and Ismar David were friends. In letters to her sister, novelist Zelda Popkin, Rossi called Ismar “a commercial artist, decorator and letterer par excellence — the best in the country”1Letter from Helen Rossi to Zelda Popkin, American Jewish Archives. Ismar helped her with her womens’ supplement for the Palestine Post, Features and Fashions, which appeared for the first time on Wednesday, August 20, 1947 and her work in public relations. She brought about his introduction to Robert Leslie and was instrumental in Ismar getting the job for the Bonds of Israel Exhibition, that brought him to New York in 1952.
Maurice Ascalon, 1913–2003, Israeli designer and sculptor.
Born in eastern Hungary, Maurice Ascalon left his ultra-religious Chasidic Jewish roots in favour of his artistic expression. At 15 years old he went to study art in Brussels and later Milan, settling in Tel Aviv in 1934. In 1939, Ascalon designed and created the enormous 14-foot-tall (4.3 m) hammered repoussé copper relief sculpture of three figures, “The Scholar, The Laborer, and The Toiler of the Soil”, which adorned the façade of the Jewish Palestine Pavilion of the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Maurice Ascalon working on the “The Scholar, The Laborer, and The Toiler of the Soil,” in Tel Aviv and Flushing, New York, and on a relief map of the Twelve Tribes.Zoltan Kluger Collection in the Israel State Archive
He founded an Israeli decorative arts manufacturing company, Pal-Bell, which produced bronze and brass decorative art and functional items. During Israel’s War for Independence in 1948, Maurice designed munitions for the Israeli Army and, at the request of the Israeli government, retrofitted his factory to produce munitions for the war effort. In 1956 Maurice immigrated to the United States, where he created silver objects of Jewish ceremonial art.
Maurice Ascalon’s son, David, recalls, as a child, meeting Ismar David. He reports that David and Maurice Ascalon were friends and collaborators, although the nature of the collaboration is not currently certain.
Business card of Maurice Ascalon, after he moved to the United States.
Lud Cigarette Factory (בית חרושת לסיגריות לוד בע”מ), Israeli factory that was founded in 1950 by the Histadrut
Lud manufactured cigarette brands, including Consul in 1950, Knesseth, Gila, Sharon, Etzion, Eilat in 1951, Noblesse in 1953, Negev, Lud in 1955, Knesset 6, Maksim, Silon in 1956, Lux, Record, Dolphin in 1957, Capri, Paz, Everest in 1961, A.L.F in 1964, Ben-hur in 1965, Mirage in 1967, and Mustang in 1970. By 1971 it suffered economic difficulties and was sold to Dubek Ltd., the Israeli cigarette manufacturing company that had been established in 1935.
Born in Germany, Alfred Bernheim studied photography in Weimar and applied art in Pforzheim. In 1933 he opened a studio in Berlin. Following the rise of the Nazi party to power in 1934, he immigrated to Jerusalem. He set up a photography lab in his home and was commissioned by various institutions, such as the Bezalel Academy and the Hebrew University. Most of Bernheim’s work focused on creating portraits and architectural photographs. He also engaged in commercial photography in the style of the “new photography”.
