Arthur Szyk and the Art of the Haggadah

Polish-born Jewish artist Arthur Szyk (Łódź, 1894—New Canaan, CT 1951) was a great advocate for humanity and for the global Jewish community. Szyk (pronounced Shik) achieved world-wide recognition in the 1920s and 1930s in Poland, France, and England before immigrating to the U.S. in 1940 where he went on to become the leading anti-Nazi artist during World War II. Szyk is also famous for his illuminated Passover Haggadah, and his iconic towering Holy Ark for the Forest Hills Jewish Center. Szyk’s work fought injustice and intolerance, bigotry and racism as a “soldier in art.”

This four-part lecture series by Szyk scholar Irvin Ungar will explore how and why Szyk is the artist of and for the Jewish people, and the ways his art and spirit remain eternal in the service of mankind.

Arthur Szyk's Haggadah was not only the most expensive new book in the world upon publication in 1940, but the Times of London deemed it "worthy of being considered among the most beautiful of books ever produced by the hand of man." Its editor, Cecil Roth declared "To call Arthur Szyk the greatest illuminator since the 16th century is no flattery. It is the simple truth that manifests itself to anyone who studies his work with the care which it deserves." This study will also demonstrate how Szyk saw Hitler as the new Pharaoh and the Nazis as the new Egyptians who had come to annihilate his people, using an ancient text to deliver a modern message about persecution and freedom. Executed between 1934-1936, Szyk's visual commentary called for heroism and emigration of Europe's Jews to Palestine.