Aleph-Bet, Hermann Fechenbach. Berlin: Schocken, [1936?].
Picture book, with twenty-two color drawings of animals, in order of the Hebrew alphabet, by Hermann Fechenbach. Enclosed are twenty-two loose plates with the same illustrations in black and white and one plate with a preface in English and in German (all placed in a pocket inside back board).
Fechenbach explains in his preface: "I have painted for you twenty-two different animals… You can also copy them on tracing paper, cut them out with scissors and color them. For the tracing and coloring I have added twenty-two drawings, so that you need not spoil the picture-book…".
Hermann Fechenbach (1897-1986), German-Jewish artist, illustrator and printmaker. Fought and was seriously wounded in WWI. He studied art in Erfurt and Stuttgart. In 1938, after an unsuccessful attempt to immigrate to Palestine, he settled with his wife in England, where he worked as an artist. In 1940, he was interned as an enemy alien in the Hutchinson Internment Camp on the Isle of Man, along with many other German and Austrian Jews. He remained there for ten months, during which he created a series of linocuts titled "My Impressions as Refugee". After his release, he remained in England, where he continued his artistic work until his death.
[24] pp. + 23 plates, approx. 24X22.5 cm. Good condition. Foxing. Inked stamp inside front board. Abrasions to binding edges.