Creator Bio
Solomon Yudovin
1892–1954
Born in Beshenkovichi, a village near Vitebsk (today in Belarus), Solomon Yudovin was a graphic artist and book illustrator known especially for his woodcuts and linocuts of Jewish life in the Pale of Settlement and for his series of Jewish folk ornaments. Having studied in Yehudah Pen’s art academy in Vitebsk, he participated in S. An-ski’s Jewish ethnographic expeditions through Volhynia and Podolia in his early twenties both as a collector and a photographer. For the rest of his career, working in the Soviet Union, he focused much of his artistic effort on realist depictions of traditional Jewish life in various media and on reproductions of Jewish folk ornamentation (for instance, traditions of carved tombstone motifs).
Content by Solomon Yudovin
Primary Source
Pavoloch Torah Ark
In 1910, some four thousand Jews lived in the shtetl of Pavolitsh (Ukr.: Pavoloch). Despite its small size, the community boasted a substantial synagogue. Its plain exterior, however, gave little hint…
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Tallis Weaver
This photograph was made by the young graphic artist and photographer Solomon Yudovin in the context of his participation in Jewish writer, folklorist, and cultural activist S. An-ski’s famed…
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In the Beys-medresh [House of Study]
Photograph of two men studying in the beys-medresh (Heb., bet ha-midrash, a room or building used for traditional Torah/Talmud study as well as prayer). This is one of many photographs taken by…
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Yidishe Folkspartei Election Poster
The Folkspartei (Folk Party), which championed the goal of Jewish national autonomy in the diaspora, was founded in Saint Petersburg in 1906 under the leadership of the historian Simon Dubnow and…