The Jewish Holidays, Customs and Traditions by Chaim Gross
Chaim Gross Hackensack, NJ: Custom Editorial Services, 1977. Presumed First printing thus. Hardcover. Format is approximately 11.25 inches by 12.5 inches. Unpaginated. Cover has minor wear and soiling. Ink notation on fep. This book includes a foreword, as well as descriptions and pictures of the Jewish Holidays. In these color lithographs, Gross recaptures the color of his childhood, as his skill makes them come alive for those who haven't shared the experience. For those to whom this vanished world is mere history, Gross offers an emotional insight as well as esthetic pleasure. These festivals and customs still live today, although perhaps not so close at hand as they once were. Through the memory of movement and modeling that is the specialty of Chaim Gross, the world of his childhood breathes again. The book contains information on the Jewish holidays and customs, as well as a Foreword. The Holidays coverers are: Rosh Hashanah (New Year's Day), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), Succot (Feast of Tabernacles), Simchat Torah (Rejoicing in the Law), Hanukah (Feast of Rededication), Purim Feast of Lots), Pesach (Passover), Lag B'Omer (Scholar's Holiday) , Shavuot (Feast of Weeks), and Tisha B'Av (Ninth of Av). The Customs are: Hatunah (Chasseneh) (The Wedding), Brit Milah (Circumcision), Pidyon Ha-Ben (Redemption of the First-Born), Bar Mitzvah (Son of the Commandment), Bat Mitzvah (Daughter of the Commandment), Hadlakat Nerot (Benschen Light) (Blessing of the Sabbath Lights), Kiddush (Sanctification), Seudah Shelishit (The Third Meal), Havdalah Farewell to the Sabbath), Kiddush L'Vanah (Sanctifying the New Moon), and Tu B'Shevat (New Year for the Trees). When the Hebrews codified their laws, under Moses, the compassionate tone of much of their legalism was unique. Though much of Hebrew law was Draconian, in keeping with that rough-and-ready era, a thread of concern for individual rights and social responsibility runs through Leviticus and Numbers. The watercolors reproduced in this book were published as a suite in 1968 by Associated American Artists, New York. Chaim Gross (March 17, 1902 – May 5, 1991) was an American sculptor and educator. Gross immigrated to the United States in 1921. In 1926, Gross began teaching at The Educational Alliance, and continued teaching there for the next 50 years. Louise Nevelson was among his students at the Alliance (in 1934), during the time she was transitioning from painting to sculpture. Gross began exhibiting sculpture in group shows of students at the Educational Alliance, and then at the Jewish Art Center in the Bronx. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he exhibited at the Salons of America exhibitions at the Anderson Galleries and, beginning in 1928, at the Whitney Studio Club (the precursor to the Whitney Museum of American Art). In 1929, Gross experimented with printmaking, and created an important group of 15 linocuts and lithographs of landscapes, New York City streets and parks, women in interiors, the circus, and vaudeville. The entire suite is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gross returned to the medium of printmaking in the 1960s, and produced approximately 200 works in the medium over the next two decades. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. His work was also part of the sculpture event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Gross was a professor of printmaking and sculpture at both the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research in New York City, as well as at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the MoMA art school, the Art Student's League and the New Art School. Gross was a member of the New York Artists Equity Association and the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. He was a founder and served as the first president of the Sculptors Guild. Condition: Very good.
Keywords: Jewish Customs, Jewish Holidays, Jews, Lithographs, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succot, Simchat Torah, Hanukah, Purim, Pesach; Lag B' Omer, Shavuot, Tisha B'Av
[Book #82391]
Price: $375.00