"Habima's Dybbuk", reproduction of drawings by Ber Horovits – portraits of Habima actors in the play "The Dybbuk." [Vienna?, late 1930s].
20 reproductions of drawings by Ber Horovits (1895-1942). The drawings – portraits of Habima actors in the play The Dybbuk (Hanna Rovina, Tamar Robbins, Shoshana Doar, Chaim Amitai and others) – were created by Horovits in 1938, during a tour of the play in Europe (presumably in Vienna). The reproductions are signed in the plate, some of them dated. All of them are signed by Horovits, in red pen.
The reproductions are accompanied by a leaf with the title "Habima's Dybbuk I – Ber Horovits", handwritten by Horovits (the front of the original paper portfolio cover). [See Kedem, auction 38, lot 114: A series of 39 reproductions titled "Habima's Dybbuk" (different title design).]
Ber Horovits was a Yiddish poet, writer, and artist, born in eastern Galicia. During World War I, he was recruited into the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army and took part in numerous battles. He studied medicine in Vienna and worked as a physician; at the same time, he wrote poems and stories which were published in Yiddish journals and newspapers, and was a member of various literary circles. His first book of poems, "Fun Mayn Heym in di Berg, " was published in 1919. In addition to writing, Horovits was also an illustrator; he even illustrated one of his own books (Vunderlekhe Mayses, 1923). He later lived in Krakow and worked at the Yiddish Theater. From there he moved to Stanislawów (today, Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine), where he was murdered in 1942, presumably by the Nazis.
[1] leaf, [20] reproduction plates. 30 cm. Good condition. Tears and minor blemishes to the title leaf. Lacking the rear portfolio cover.