Born in Siberia, the painter Abraham Walkowitz immigrated to the United States as a young child with his widowed mother, settling on the Lower East Side of New York. He studied art in New York and Paris and was attracted to modernism. Between 1912 and 1917, he was part of the avant-garde circle of artists associated with Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery 291. His best work—cubist paintings and drawings of New York cityscapes capturing the dynamism of modern urban life—was done early in his career. He is also known for his five thousand drawings of the dancer Isadora Duncan, whom he first met in Paris before World War I.
Can you imagine the air filled with smoke?
It was. The city was vanishing before noon
or was it earlier than that? I can’t say because
the light came from nowhere and went nowhere.
This was years…
The Book of Esther (also known as the Scroll [megillah] of Esther) is read out loud on the holiday of Purim. This example of an illustrated scroll from the Netherlands (shown here with a page of…
These fragments of a mural from Kuntillet Ajrud show two human heads, facing left and looking out over their city’s wall, which is flanked by towers. The mural may have been part of a military scene…