From the shtetlach (villages) of Eastern Europe to the boisterous shores of New York’s Coney Island, immigrant Jewish artisans brought with them a vital and meaningful visual tradition that helped bridge the transition from the Old World to the New. Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the masaj salonları Carousel traces the journey of Jewish woodcarvers and other artists from Eastern and Central Europe to America and the unsung role they played in establishing a distinct Jewish visual culture in communities throughout the United States.
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LION / Marcus Charles Illions (1865/1874–1949) / Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York / 1910 / paint on wood with glass eyes / 51 x 84 x 20" / Mary Lawrence and Walter Youree Collection, Oregon / photo by Paul Foster, Portland, Oregon |
As Jewish immigrants struggled to balance the continuation of an observant life with the realities of adjusting to a new environment, artisans responded to the vigorous pull of the spiritual and the secular through the perpetuation of familiar forms and the new application of traditional artmaking skills. It was within this powerful dynamic that a surprising link was forged between the synagogue and the carousel.
proxy directoryBeginning with an exploration of the wondrous symbolic imagery that infused three important centers of traditional Jewish life in Eastern and Central Europe–the synagogue, the home, and the cemetery–Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses will follow the legacy of such symbols, found in ark carvings, on gravestones, and in papercuts, to America, where they were re-created in Jewish centers from ports of entry such as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston to nascent communities in the Midwest and farther reaches of the country.
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LIONS OF JUDAH FROM SHAAREI ELI TORAH ARK / attributed to Isaac Sternberg (Itzok the Schnitzer) (dates unknown)/ Philadelphia /c. 1918/ paint, metallic paint, and gold leaf on wood / 47 x 25 x 11" each / National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, gift of Congregation Shaarei Eli, 1984.32.1a, b / photo by Gavin Ashworth, New York |
A major focus will be on New York, where a group of talented carvers were among the throngs of Jewish immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe who arrived between the 1880s and 1920s. They produced ark carvings for the many synagogues that proliferated on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and in Brooklyn.
The association between immigrant Jewish woodcarvers and the American carousel industry is embodied in the colorful figure of Marcus Charles Illions, who came from a family of horse dealers in Vilna, Lithuania. His signature appears on carved Torah arks and also on a number of carousel horses. Historical photographs of Illions’s shop show synagogue carvings side by side with carousel animals.
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ARMOURED STANDING HORSE / Charles Carmel (1865–1931)/ Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York / c. 1905–1925 / paint on wood with jewels, glass eyes, metal bridle ring, and horsehair tail / 59 1/2 x 51 x 13 1/2" / The Charlotte Dinger Collection / photo by August Bandal, New York |
Marcus Charles Illions, along with Solomon Stein and Harry Goldstein, Charles Carmel, and others, was inspired by his Jewish heritage to create fiery carousel horses and menagerie animals with flamelike manes, flaring nostrils, wild eyes, and elaborate floral and jeweled trappings.
Their ferocious red mouths gape like those of the rampant lions who guard the Tablets of the Law atop Torah arks. These exuberant carvings stand as testaments to a history of survival and transformation and provide a surprising revelation of the link that was forged between the sacred and the secular as immigrant Jewish artists transferred symbolic visual elements into a vernacular American idiom, from the synagogue to the carousel.
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DECALOGUE, LIONS, AND LARGE CROWN / artist unidentified / probably Ohio / 1882 / paint and gold paint on wood / 36 x 48" / Hillel Jewish Student Center, Cincinnati, gift in memory of Jack Katz by his wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, 1989.035 / photo by Mark Bealer, Cincinnati |
