Israeli printmaking refers to printmaking by Jewish artists in the Land of Israel and the State of Israel beginning in the second half of the 19th century. The genre includes a variety of techniques, including woodcutting, etching and lithography.
History
The first printing press in the Land of Israel, and all of Western Asia, was established in Safed in 1577 by partners Eliezer and Abraham ben Isaac Ashkenazi (apparently no relation). The first book printed was Lekach Tov, a commentary on the Book of Esther by 18 year old Yom Tov Tzahalon. Eliezer, a native of Prague, operated in Lublin and Constantinople before settling in Safed, and the press apparently shut down following his death in 1587.
The modern printing industry in Israel goes back to the second half of the 19th century, when a number of printing houses were established in Jerusalem. These printing houses dealt with the printing of texts in which various artistic images were incorporated. The first Hebrew printing house was established by Yisrael Bak (abbreviation of Baal Koreh) in Safed in 1841 and transferred to Jerusalem in 1841. Bak worked with presses and tools for casting letters he brought with him from Europe. The first press was a wooden table-shaped press, a heavy metal plate laid on the paper undergoing the printing operation.See Joseph Olitzky, The Art of Printing, (Hadera: Museum of Printing Art and Hadera Paper, 1973), p. 37 In 1842, Bak received the printing presses nicknamed "Massat Moshe and Yehudit" (he: משאת משה ויהודית) from Moses Montefiore. Its area of print was 85 cm long and 57 cm wide.This press was sold by Bak's son to the Zuckerman Printing Press (see, Joseph Olitzky, The Art of Printing, p. 37, 53-54). The press was later moved to the Levin-Epstein Press and is housed today at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya The first book printed by Beck in Jerusalem was "Seder Avodat Hakodesh" (he: סדר עבודת הקודש) by Chaim Yosef David Azulai.The title page is decorated with a hybrid wood engraving technique. In the center is an image of a two-column gate in the Ionic order, bearing a decorative frieze with an acanthus leaf. The page is framed with an ornamental flower patterns.See Yona Fischer, ed., Art and Craft in the Land of Israel in the Nineteenth Century (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum,1979), p. 188-189.
Christian printing houses such as the Armenian St. James Printing House were founded in 1833; the Franciscan printing house in 1846 under the direction of Sebastian Pratschner; the printing house of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in 1853 and a printing house in 1885 at the Schneller Orphanage.See Gil Gordon, "'The best one in the Black Art: The Print-shop of Schneller's German Protestant Mission in Palestine in the late Ottoman Period'," Cathedra 138 (2010): 83-110.
Most of these printing houses produced texts in Letterpress printing. However, various illustrations were sometimes included. These illustrations were created using woodcut, wood engraving or metal engraving techniques and were limited by the size the print. Most of the decorations were assigned to the title page of the book. This page usually consisted of a decorative frame created from a print or image of the Holy Land. In addition, the printing houses produced decorated certificates, "Mizrach" plaques [ornamental or sacred pictures hung on the east wall of a house or synagogue in the direction of Jerusalem], etc. Some of the printing blocks were made by the printing house itself and others were commissioned. Abraham Leib Monsohn of the Monsohn Family of Jerusalem, for example, created some of the printing blocks for his printing house, while others were created by artists like Meir Rozin. The "Shiviti" by Shimon Israel Shane was printed using three blocks depicting the Western Wall, Rachel's Tomb and the Tombs of the Kings with the addition of hand-painted and hand-stamped seals.See Yona Fischer, ed., Art and Craft in the Land of Israel in the Nineteenth Century (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum,1979), p. 49-51. In many cases, these illustrations were reused for different purposes and even shared by different printing houses.See Yona Fischer, ed., Art and Craft in the Land of Israel in the Nineteenth Century (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum,1979), p.184.
The first use of the technique of lithograph printing was at the Salomon Printing House (he: דפוס סלומון), founded by Yoel Moshe Salomon and Michal HaCohen, who learned the technique in Königsberg.See: Inspiration and Implementation: The Story of the Salomon (Zoref) Family (Jerusalem: The Ari Synagogue, 2011), p. 10- 11. During their studies there HaCohen and Solomon printed a pamphlet entitled "Altar Stones," in which they detailed the process of creating a lithographic print. Their decision to import the technique to Israel probably stemmed from their desire to serve as an alternative to the printing house of Back, which for 20 years had held a monopoly in the field of Jewish printmaking. One of the first works printed by the new printing house was "Shoshanta" (1862), the name for a local version of a decorative ornament drawn from European traditions. Along with the descriptions, there were also photographs of places such as the Tomb of Absalom, Tower of David, the Western Wall, etc.
Another printing press that was known for its artistic works was A.L. Monsohn Lithography (he: דפוס א.ל. מונזון), which began operations in 1892. The printing house began operating with a hand press and in 1894 brought an automatic machine from Europe that could produce about 1,000 pages per hour. A major part of the work of this printing press was the use of the lithograph printing technique. Among other things, it created prints of up to half a sheet (50x70 cm),See: A.L. Monsohn Lithographic Press,1892-1992, (Jerusalem: The Ari Synagogue, 2009), p. 2. from the works of artists such as Rozin, Moshe Ben Yitzhak Mizrachi, and others, who also began to make use of photographs created using the lithographic technique,See: Gideon Ofrat, ed., 100 Years of Printing in Israel (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Print Workshop, 2015), p.11. The photographs were converted to lithographs in a process that included the use of the technique of etching and transfer paper (Decalcomania).
1900–1950
While the people of the 'Old Yishuv' perceived art as a religious art that served the liturgy, at the beginning of the 20th century, art became more prevalent in modern Hebrew culture. Expressions of Judaism also began to gain national significance, following the expansion of the Zionist movement in Europe. The artists who came from Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, already experienced artists with a standing in the print industry, contributed most to the development of this medium in the Eretz Israel. Another central milestone in the development of this concept is the establishment of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem in 1906.
Hermann Struck and successors
The most prominent Jewish artist in the European printing industry was Hermann Struck, who was associated with many Expressionist artists, was even a member of the Sezessionstil in Berlin, and exhibited consistently until 1913. Along with landscapes, Struck created portraits and genre descriptions of Jewish life, particularly in Eastern Europe. He did this in a variety of print techniques such as lithograph and etching. Over the years he published several files of prints as a book, but Struck's most famous and successful book was Die Kunst des Radierens (The Art of Etching), published in Berlin in 1908 by Paul Kasirer. The book described the process of printing etchings, interspersed with illustrations by Struck. Because of the popularity of the book, which appealed to both artists and to the public as a whole, it was printed in four additional editions between 1912 and 1923. The book established Struck's fame as a leading artist in the print industry.
Jacob Steinhardt and Joseph Budko, who studied print with Struck, also dealt often with themes from the Shtetl, not only as an ethnographic depiction, as Struck did, but also as a spiritual expression. Part of the change stemmed from the influence of expressionism on these artists. For Steinhardt, for example, this effect was expressed in a theatrical atmosphere rich in pathos and grotesque expressions.See One Hundred Years of Printmaking in Israel (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Print Workshop, 2015), p. 66.
Between 1907 and 1935, Steinhardt created about 250 etchings, but in Palestine he began to work in the wood cut, combining wood engraving parts, both because of his inability to produce these etchings and as an expression of the influence of the light in Palestine, which he expresses in the contrasting blacks and whites characteristic of this medium.See: Amishai-Meisels, Ziva, Jacob Steinhardt: Etchings and Lithographs, (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1981), p. 18.
Along with their independent works, the two also created Illustrations in various print techniques for various Hebrew publications that were published in Europe at the time. Among these are the woodcuts that Steinhardt created for the Book of Jonah (1924) and the Passover Haggadah (Berlin: Ferdinand Auster, 1923), accompanied by a calligraphic text created by Franzisca Baruch, and the lithographs created by Budko for Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight (1919), as well as his prints for the 50th edition (Berlin: Hovevei Ha-Shir Ha-Ivrit, 1923) of the writings of Hayim Nahman Bialik.
1906–1930: Bezalel
With the establishment of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Crafts, Ephraim Moses Lilien, one of the leading illustrators in Europe, arrived in Jerusalem. His artistic style derived from the European "Jugendstil" and his work expressed the main Zionist national outlook at the time. Lilien was also in the habit of taking photographs from which he would create his drawings and prints. Despite the fact that he lived only a short time in Jerusalem, his style influenced Bezalel's main style of design.
In 1909, a lithography department was opened at Bezalel, headed by Avraham Gershowitz (Gershuni). This department printed a limited number of artistic works, mainly by artists such as Shmuel Ben-David and Ya’akov (Jacob) Stark. However, the print quality was poor and was not suitable for producing large editions, mainly due to the technical equipment. Boris Schatz himself testified in 1917 that the school had equipment to "make experimental leaves," but that "we do not have a printing machine."Boris Schatz, "A Proposal to Strengthen and Distribute Craftsmanship in Jerusalem and Eretz-Israel in General," in Shilo-Cohen, Nurit, Schatz's Bezalel, (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1982), p.178. In addition to the artistic endeavors, the department also did commercial work such as printing textbooks and other materials, such as lottery cards designed by Shmuel Haruvi. Most of the lithographic work at Bezalel included realistic prints of portraits and genre descriptions, as well as a few commercial works.