BE-VAKASHAH בבקשה
Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Paz, 1940s? Item #43468
No Date [1940s?]First edition. Original illustrated printed boards, 8vo, 10 unnumbered leaves, includes illustrations. 18 cm. In Hebrew. Title translates as “Please.”
Richly illustrated children's book by Leah Goldberg.
“Lea Goldberg began writing poetry at twelve, profoundly shaped by her family’s exile from Russia to Lithuania and her father’s imprisonment and subsequent breakdown. Goldberg studied at the Universities of Kovno, Berlin, and Bonn. She made Aliyah to Palestine in 1935 and published her first collection of poetry, Smoke Rings, later that year. Throughout the 1940s her poems paid tribute to the Eastern Europe of her childhood, but in the 1950s she explored themes of creativity, love, and silence, particularly in her 1955 collection Morning Lightning. She began teaching literature at Hebrew University in the 1950s, focusing on Russian literature. She also published several plays, children’s books, and novels, and translated Tolstoy, Ibsen, and Chekhov into Hebrew. She was awarded the Israel Prize posthumously in 1970.” (Jewish Women’s Archive)
The Tel Aviv publisher Sifriyat Paz, managed by H. Margolin and Dr. Y. Zeliger, primarily operated during the 1940s and 1950s. The publishing house is best known for releasing beloved, colorfully illustrated children's books and fairy tales, often featuring the illustrations of Moshe Matusovski, during its peak era.
The illustrated, Moshe Matus [Matusovski] (1908-1963) immigrated to Tel Aviv from Warsaw in 1924. After graduating from Herzliya Gymnasium he studied painting and sculpture at the Bezalel School of Art with Boris Schatz and later, in the early 1930s, at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Returning to Tel Aviv, he was one of the most prominent artists in Mandate Palestine. He participated in general exhibitions and had one-man shows at the Herzliya Hotel in Tel Aviv (1932); in Allenby 15, Tel Aviv (1935), in Pomrock House, (1936); in the Steimatzky Gallery in Jerusalem (1937); the Cosmopolitan Gallery in Tel Aviv, (1938) and at the Tel Aviv Art Museum (1946).
He painted the scenery for the play "Warsaw" staged by Habimah Theater and other public events in Israel.
In the 1930s and 1940s Matus illustrated dozens of Hebrew children's books published in Israel.
In May 1947 he moved with his wife to the United States, continuing on to Montreal in 1952. His first exhibition there, which was shown at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the city on April 8, 1952, was opened by Thibodaux Renfro, the president of the Supreme Court of Canada and Acting Governor-General. Two and a half years later, in 1955, he moved to Toronto, where he lived until his death,
In the spring of 1958, he was appointed by the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews (CCCJ) to paint the portrait of John Keiller MacKay, the 19th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1957 to 1963 - despite the tradition that it was customary until then to invite an official portrait only with an artist who is a subject of the Kingdom of the Commonwealth of Nations and a member of the British Royal Academy of Art (Translated from Wikipedia).
SUBJECT(S): Children's literature, Hebrew. OCLC: 122730605. OCLC locates only 2 copies worldwide (YIVO, Spertus); and also a 1946 edition by the same publisher with 12 unnumbered leaves in 2 libraries in Israel (NLI, TAU), which is either the same edition or a variant from the same period.
Front inside hinge taped, some light staining and discoloration. Lacks Hebrew booklet "Sipur shel Ya'ir" usually found in back pocket. Good Condition. Scarce. (BK) (YID-48-122-’lexccgg).
Price: $275.00