Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 9

Paul Jeffay
Judaica Jewish Shtetl Etching Reading the Newspaper Vintage Chassidic Art Print

c.1950's

About the Item

9. "Ouvriers au repos." Chassidic boy, Yeshiva student with open book. Judaica, Jewish scenes from a ghetto. Saul Yaffie, a.k.a. Paul Jeffay, (1898–1957) was a Scottish Jewish artist. Known for his charming French street scenes as well as his judaica work. This is signed in the plate and dated 1931 in the print. This is done in a style similar to the works of the early Bezalel School artists Hermann Struck and Jakob Steinhardt. This lithograph, by artist Paul Jeffay depicts a Judaic Shtetl interior scene with great charm and sensitivity. Saul Yaffie was born in Blythswood, Glasgow on 29 April 1898. His mother was Kate Yaffie (née Karkonoski), and his father, Bernard Yaffie, was a master tailor. Like many Russian Jews, Kate and Bernard Yaffie fled persecution in Russia during a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms triggered by the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Saul's father was naturalised as a British citizen by the time that Saul himself was three; a Bernard Yaffie is recorded as living at Abbotsford Place in the old Gorbals, where the young Saul spent the early years of his childhood. The Yaffies were not unique in their situation: the Gorbals was the centre of Scotland's Jewish community and home to a large proportion of Glasgow's immigrants throughout the early 20th century. Over time, there was a movement to some of the more affluent communities in Glasgow, such as Pollokshields and Garnethill, as many Jewish families gradually improved their social and economic situation. Like these, the Yaffies also experienced a time of good fortune, moving to a more agreeable address on Sinclair Drive, Cathcart as Bernard's tailoring business prospered. Saul attended day classes in drawing and painting, modelling, and life drawing at The Glasgow School of Art from 1912 to 1919. During the First World War, he was required to interrupt his studies to serve in the King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1916/17. Although subject to military conscription, Yaffie reached the rank of corporal during his service. Prior to his conscription Yaffie engaged in munitions work, something that was recorded in the GSA's student registers. The post-war economic depression that affected the country during the 1920s, also affected the Yaffie family directly: Bernard Yaffie's business suffered greatly, and the family eventually emigrated to Canada. Saul did not emigrate with his family, choosing instead to stay in Europe, and relocate to jazz age Paris where he continued his artistic practice. Now married, Saul sought to escape persecution in Europe by returning to the UK before the Second World War with his wife, Estusia. The two settled in Manchester, but returned to France after the war. In his memoires ‘Bronze in My Blood’, German-born sculptor Benno Schotz describes a Saul ‘Yaffe’, one of only three other Jewish students who attended The Glasgow School of Art at the time. (Schotz himself was exempt from joining the forces because he was ‘not yet a British subject’, and was engaged in war work in the drawing office of John Brown’s shipyards). On the outbreak of the war, Schotz writes, Yaffie won a poster competition to be displayed in Glasgow tramcars at the beginning of the 1914-18 war – his winning design depicted a woman with a child in her arms, fleeing from a fire behind her. While on leave from service, the young Saul told Schotz he had briefly been stationed in the same unit as Jewish American sculptor Jacob Epstein. This was most likely the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, also known as ‘the Jewish Legion’, one of five Jewish battalions raised during WW1. ‘He told me how incongruous it was’, remembers Schotz, ‘to See Epstein scrubbing the floor of their hut, with a large diamond ring on his finger’. His work is included in the collection of the Ben Uri Museum in London along with Lucian Freud, David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Josef Herman, Jankel Adler, Feliks Topolski and Alfred Wolmark. Significantly, the Ben Uri Collection includes important works by a considerable number of these great émigré artists. After the armistice Saul returned briefly to Glasgow, before ‘try[ing] his luck in Paris’ (Schotz, pg. 64). It is around this time that Saul began to sign his work with the pseudonym ‘Paul Jeffay’. Saul Yaffie is listed in the Glasgow School of Art's World War One Roll of Honour. He later went by the name Paul Jeffay, and much of his work is signed under this name. Saul Yaffie/Paul Jeffay died in Paris in 1957; his work is included the Ben Uri Gallery Collection of Jewish émigré artists.
  • Creator:
    Paul Jeffay (1898 - 1957, British)
  • Creation Year:
    c.1950's
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 14.9 in (37.85 cm)Width: 11.1 in (28.2 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    handmade paper. edges ruffles and slightly toned.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38214554782

More From This Seller

View All
Biblical Prophet
By Ben-Zion Weinman
Located in Surfside, FL
Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s avant-garde group, Painted on anything handy. Ben-Zion often used cabinet doors (panels) in his work. Other members of group included Ilya Bolotowsky, Lee Gatch, Adolf Gottlieb...
Category

Mid-20th Century Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Biblical Prophet Etching American Modernist WPA Artist
By Ben-Zion Weinman
Located in Surfside, FL
Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s avant-garde group, Painted on anything handy. Ben-Zion often used cabinet...
Category

Mid-20th Century Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Judaica Jewish Shtetl Etching Yeshiva Talmudic Study Vintage Chassidic Art Print
By Paul Jeffay
Located in Surfside, FL
"Qui a raison?" Chassidic boy, Yeshiva student with open book. Judaica, Jewish scenes from a ghetto. Saul Yaffie, a.k.a. Paul Jeffay, (1898–1957) was a Scottish Jewish artist. Kno...
Category

20th Century Expressionist Interior Prints

Materials

Etching

Purim Holiday Scene Judaica Aquatint Etching American Modernist WPA Artist
By Ben-Zion Weinman
Located in Surfside, FL
Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s avant-garde group, Painted on anything handy. Ben-Zion often used cabinet...
Category

Mid-20th Century Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Dutch Fantastic Modern Etching, Jan Mensinga Old Master Style Wine Maker, Grapes
Located in Surfside, FL
Jan Roelf Mensinga, Dutch artist, painter, graphic printmaker, watercolor artist. (born Leeuwarden 1924 - 1998 Amsterdam) Education: Mensinga attended an art studies from 1954 to 1...
Category

20th Century Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Hungarian Modernist Judaica Etching Print Teffilin, Jewish Rabbi in Prayer
By Janos Kass
Located in Surfside, FL
From very small edition of 15 on handmade mould made paper, with Jewish star Magen David watermark. From the deluxe boxed portfolio edition. Hand signed in pencil. János Kass (December 26, 1927 – March 29, 2010) was a Hungarian illustrator, printmaker, graphic designer, postage stamp designer, animated film director and teacher. Hungary's foremost graphic artist and book illustrator. Born in Szeged, he was the storyboard artist for the first fully digital animated film. This is done in a manner reminiscent of Saul Raskin, Tully Filmus and William Gropper, this is a modern take on a classic judaic subject matter, similar in style and tone to Abram Krol, Jakob Steinhardt, Josef Budko and Hermann Struck. Beginning his artistic studies at the Applied Art Academy, Kass finished in 1951 at the Academy of Fine Arts, a student of Gyula Hincz, György Kádár and György Konecsni. From 1956 to 1959 he held the Derkovits scholarship. From 1961 to 1962, he was assistant professor at the Book-Art Academy in Leipzig, Germany. Kass regularly took part in every major national exhibition at home and abroad. He had one-man shows in Italy (1963), Australia (1970) and Switzerland (1976). He participated in the Venice Biennial (1960), the Youth Biennial in Paris (1961), and Biennials in Lugano, Tokyo, Ljubljana, São Paulo and Buenos Aires, along with "Intergrafik" exhibitions in Berlin. He made many friends within the British graphic art fraternity while spending some months in London during 1980, working on one of the earliest, fully digitized computer-animated films, Dilemma, with John Halas. He had already won recognition with his illustrations and book designs. At the 1973 Leipzig book fair, his work was awarded the title of best illustrated book at the fair. This accolade was repeated at the Frankfurt fair in 1999. The 11-minute Dilemma was nominated at that year's Cannes Film Festival for the Golden Palm for Best Short Film, and is considered the first fully digital animated film. Kass was also a background artist for the "So Beautiful and So Dangerous" segment of Ivan Reitman Productions' 1981 animated feature film Heavy Metal. Kass' drawings, etchings and silk-screen prints were exhibited in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in 1989 and in 1990 at London Olympia. He later held a one-man show in Edinburgh. He illustrated something like 400 books, classical novels and children's stories, among them an elegant edition of Imre Madách's 19th-century drama The Tragedy of Man, published in Iain MacLeod's translation by Edinburgh's Canongate press in 1993. He won Hungary's highest artistic award, the Kossuth prize, and was an elected member of the Széchenyi academy. János Kass’ s numerous works can be found in the Hungarian National Gallery. Since 1985, the János Kass Gallery...
Category

1990s Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

You May Also Like

'Viel Gluck 1923' — New Year's Greeting - German Expressionism
By Karl Michel
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Karl Michel, 'Viel Gluck 1923 Wunscht Karl Michel', etching, 1923, edition not stated but small. Signed, dated, and numbered 'op. 136' in pencil. Signed in the image, lower right. A...
Category

1920s Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

'Ex Libris Dr. Witropp' — German Expressionism
By Karl Michel
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Karl Michel, 'Ex Libris Dr. Witropp - Homunculus und Galatee', etching, 1923, edition not stated. Signed, dated, and numbered 'Op. 140' (the artist's inventory number) in pencil. Si...
Category

1920s Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Salto Sobre La Cabeza
By Karel Appel
Located in Austin, TX
Artist: Karel Appel Title: Salto Sobre La Cabeza Year: 1988 Medium: Etching with aquatint Signed and dated '88, numbered 5/60 in pencil Dimensions: 19.25" x 4.5" Provenance: Gallery ...
Category

1980s Expressionist Abstract Prints

Materials

Etching, Aquatint

HAMBURGER KNIEPPE
By Käthe Kollwitz
Located in Santa Monica, CA
KATHE KOLLWITZ (1867-1945) HAMBURGER KNIEPPE, 1901) (K.58 IIIb) Soft Ground Etching, Plate 9 ¾ x 8 ¼ sheet 10 ½ x 13 ¾. With the von de Becke blind stamp in the lower right. Prin...
Category

Early 1900s Expressionist Interior Prints

Materials

Etching

Elke Up Side Down : Tribute to Woman - Original etching
By Georg Baselitz
Located in Paris, IDF
Georg Baselitz (1938) Elke Up Side Down : Tribute to Woman Original etching On Rives vellum 66 x 50 cm (c. 26 x 20 in) Authenticated with Chalcographie of Louvre Museum blind stamp ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Ben Alexander - Etching by Erich Heckel - 1927
By Erich Heckel
Located in Roma, IT
Lithograph on laid paper realized by Heckel in 1927. Signed and dated in pencil lower right. Hand numbered 11/20 lower left. Provenance: Galerie Vayhinger, Radolfzell, Private Col...
Category

1740s Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Recently Viewed

View All