Female nude

Marek Szwarc met Jankiel Adler, Henryk Barczyński, Icchak Brauner and other members of Yung-Yidish in Lodz during World War I. This event affected significantly Szwarc’s life and his artistic career. Many years later the artist said: Both of us [Jankel Adler and Szwarc] were young, barely in our twenties, full of memories from the École des Beaux-Arts and exhibitions, of our own discoveries and enthusiasm. The house of the painter Wick Brauner in Lodz became the shelter for all the young Jewish artists: Barczyński, Adler, me, composer Henoch Kon, poets [Moishe] Broderson and [Icchak] Kacenelson [...]. Broderson would read to us his fervent poetry. Having recently arrived from Moscow he was, in our eyes, the embodiment of the Russian Revolution. (M. Szwarc, Hołd pośmiertny Jankielowi Adlerowi, in: Jankiel Adler. 1895-1949, catalogue of exhibition, Düsseldorf–Tel Awiw–Łódź 1986, pp. 59, 61). During his engagement with Yung-Yidysh, Szwarc created scenes and figural compositions based on stories from the Old and New Testament. Akt kobiecy [Female Nude] (reproduced in the first issue of the Jung Idysz almanac, no. 1, 1919, p. 1) presents a silhouette of a woman in a dynamic twist, dancing. It might as well be an illustration for the Song of Songs. Reprints of the linocut were presented also under the altered title Ewa [Eve]. The exhibit is linked to Ukrzyżowanie [Crucifixion], 1917 (MPOLIN-M33).RP