Arthur Szyk Preserved: Institutional Collections of Original Art

An essential reference guide for learning where Arthur Szyk’s public works reside

During his lifetime, Arthur Szyk (1894–1951)—the prolific Polish-Jewish artist celebrated for his exquisite miniature paintings, book illustrations, and scathing political cartoons—created several thousand works spanning two continents. Now, for the first time, all of Szyk’s original works held by institutional collections are documented in one definitive volume, empowering a new generation of scholars and art lovers to locate individual works and to survey the artist’s career with ease.

Brimming with new research and fresh insight from the world’s foremost Szyk expert, Irvin Ungar, the compendium Arthur Szyk Preserved testifies to the depth, breadth, and unmatched brilliance of the twentieth century’s outstanding artist-activist.

Irvin Ungar, a former pulpit rabbi and antiquarian bookseller, has devoted more than three decades to scholarship on Arthur Szyk. He has curated and consulted for numerous Szyk exhibitions, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.; the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; and the New-York Historical Society. Ungar is the author of Arthur Szyk: Soldier in Art, which received the 2017 National Jewish Book Award, co-producer of the documentary film, “Soldier in Art: Arthur Szyk,” and the creator and publisher of the luxury limited edition of The Szyk Haggadah. He has also served as the curator of The Arthur Szyk Society in Burlingame, California.

Samantha Lyons, PhD, is a San Francisco Bay Area-based curator, writer, and art historian. As a research associate for Historicana, she has organized the first large-scale digital display of Arthur Szyk’s work on Artstor, with more than 500 images available for educational use. Her published articles on Szyk can be found in The Jerusalem Report and Algemeiner Journal. As a curator, Lyons has developed exhibitions on modern and contemporary art while working in the curatorial departments of San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. She received an MA and PhD in Art History from the University of Kansas.