Much as once a week I like to take time off to cover warships (Wednesdays), on Sunday, I like to cover military art and the painters, illustrators, sculptors, and the like that produced them.
Combat Gallery Sunday : The Martial Art of Arthur Szyk
Born June 16, 1894 during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II in the Central Polish city of Łódź, then part of the Holy Russian Empire, Arthur Szyk (pronounced “Shick“) showed artistic promise as youth. His father, a textile factory manager, sent young Arthur abroad to the Académie Julian in Paris in 1909 for four years then traveled Europe and Asia, finding himself in Palestine when World War I erupted.
Drafted into the Tsar’s Army as a reserve ensign, he fought in many of the pivotal battles on the Eastern Front including the one for his vey own hometown. Artistically trained, he took to sketching what he saw.
Wounded Russian soldiers. Lodz itself lost some 40 percent of its population in the war while the Russian Army threw away one million soldiers in an effort to keep Poland in the Empire in 1915. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.
When Poland became independent once again at the end of WWI, he served as an officer in the newly formed Polish Army and fought against the Reds in the Russo-Polish War while also helping produce propaganda art for the cause.
1919 propaganda poster. Via the Arthur Szyk Society.
Once the war was over, he picked up his family and spent the next two decades in France, the UK and the states where he illustrated volumes of books, created postcards, created 38 watercolors in the Washington and his Times series, and produced the Haggadah.
Szyk’s inside cover illustration for Andersen’s fairy tales, 1944
Declaration of Independence. Note the Washington artwork– Library of Congress
When the Second World War of his generation came forth, he jumped into the effort with both feet. His old homeland overrun, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he began a war of the pencils against Hitler and his like.
“Liberty what the Nazis leave behind” Aug 1941. Szyk had no love for the Soviets and it should be remembered that Stalin agreed to split his homeland with Hitler, invading Poland from the East just 17 days after the Germans did.
1939 “For a total living space, comrades in arms”
Satan leads the Ball
1939, Two comrades were serving
1944, Warriors-of-the-Polish-1st-Division-Tadeusz-Kosciuszko-by-Arthur-Szyk
Wayside shrine
Tears of Rage, 1942
Two polish officers. Szyk knew firsthand the Polish army as he was one of its first officers in 1919.
The New Order
Poland Fights Nazi Dragon – Polish War Relief, 1943– Library of Congress
1939, German ‘Authority’ in Poland,
Colliers cover
His art of the time, propaganda pieces for the main part, likely did as much damage to the Axis as a battalion of Sherman tanks or a squadron of Lancaster bombers.
With the Soviets in Poland after the end of the War, Szyk made his stay in the West permanent and in 1948 became a U.S. citizen while championing Israeli independence.
He died in 1951
Arthur Szyk self portrait
“Art is not my aim, it is my means.” – Arthur Szyk
The U.S. Library of Congress as well as the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial maintain extensive collections of his work as do at least two private associations to include the Arthur Szyk Society and Szyk.com.
Thank you for your work, sir.
