Chad Gadya (The tale of the goat)

In 1919 Lazar (El) Lissitzky became Professor of Architecture and Graphic Arts at the Vitebsk Popular Art Institute, which was then under the directorship of Marc Chagall, and subsequently Kasimir Malevich. Lissitzky, officially a student of architecture, gravitated towards book illustration - beginning a journey that would ultimately see him radically reconstruct the appearance of printed books. Initially he was particularly drawn to the circle of Marc Chagall and other Jewish graphic artist-illustrators whose works were primarily published for the large Jewish community in Kiev. From the start of his career as a book designer Lissitzky showed a propensity for both an extreme delicacy of line and powerful geometric patterns. In his 1919 illustrations for Chad Gadya, Lissitzky returned to the 'illuminated manuscript' format that he used in his 1917 work, Sichath Chullin (see Christie's, Old Masters, Modern and Contemporary Prints sale, 18 December 2001, lot 133), daringly combining traditional iconography and Hebraic lettering with his own emerging avant-garde style. Chad Gadya, published in Kiev in the unusually small edition of only 75 examples, was among the first Russian avant-garde works to be condemned and destroyed during the Stalin era. This extremely rare example is one of few surviving copies. The preparatory set of gouaches are now held by the Tel Aviv Museum.