The Almost-Forgotten Jewish Artist Who Propagandized Against Hitler

THE ATLANTIC 
By Steven Heller

A 1942 Szyk work depicting Hitler as the Anti-Christ. (courtesy Irvin Ungar)

CALIFORNIA---Forty years ago, the young rabbi Irvin Ungar found himself enamored with the work of a Polish émigré illustrator, Arthur Szyk. A new documentary created in part by Ungar, Soldier in Art: Arthur Szyk, has screened in six film festivals and is scheduled to show at the Laemmle Theatres in West Los Angeles and Encino, May 30 through June 5. The film shows Szyk’s visual commentary on American democracy, the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, and the rebirth of the Jewish people in Israel. Almost without exception, Szyk’s art was never ambiguous or abstract. “It almost always had a common theme,” Ungar says. “Freedom, not tyranny; justice, not oppression—which, when combined with the uniqueness of his style, is why Szyk became one of the leading political artists of the first half of the 20th century.” [link]