Irvin Ungar first encoun­tered the work of Arthur Szyk (1894 – 1951) in 1975, when he was brows­ing a Jew­ish book­store for a gift. Drawn to a crate of slip­cased books, he slid one out of its case and opened it. Before him was an extra­or­di­nary page of the Hag­gadah, an intri­cate and exquis­ite illus­tra­tion embed­ded in hand­some Hebrew cal­lig­ra­phy. Daz­zled, Ungar bought copies for his wed­ding par­ty. It was years before he thought about the book again.

Today Ungar is the pre­em­i­nent author­i­ty on Szyk, coin­ci­den­tal­ly through a sec­ond book­store encounter. After leav­ing the rab­binate in 1987, Ungar start­ed an anti­quar­i­an book busi­ness and in anoth­er book­store encoun­tered Szyk again, this time in the form of a box of Szyk’s Jew­ish hol­i­day prints. Ungar was again awed by Szyk’s work and imme­di­ate­ly bought the prints. He was dri­ven to learn all he could about the man who cre­at­ed such extra­or­di­nary work and to make it wide­ly known again. 

Arthur Szyk was born in Poland in 1894 and emi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States in 1940. He was at that time one of the best-known liv­ing artists, wide­ly rec­og­nized and dec­o­rat­ed by France, Poland, and the Unit­ed States. Not­ed as both illus­tra­tor and artist, he worked in an almost medieval style, rem­i­nis­cent of illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­scripts with vibrant col­or and elab­o­rate detail, but marked by con­tem­po­rary allu­sions and themes of social jus­tice. With the rise of Nazism and out­break of World War II, Szyk turned to polit­i­cal activism, skew­er­ing Hitler and his regime in vicious car­i­ca­tures and car­toons, often fea­tured in such pub­li­ca­tions as Time, Collier’s, and The New York Post. An ardent advo­cate of Jew­ish state­hood, he wept with joy on hear­ing the dec­la­ra­tion of state­hood and imme­di­ate­ly cre­at­ed the Procla­ma­tion of theEstab­lish­ment of the State of Israel. He con­sid­ered his mas­ter­piece the lim­it­ed edi­tion The Hag­gadah (1940), print­ed on vel­lum in a run of 250 copies in Eng­land and declared ​“among the most beau­ti­ful of books the hand of man has ever cre­at­ed” by The Times of Lon­don. It was a fac­sim­i­le of this Hagad­dah that Ungar bought in 1975.

Reviv­ing the Artist Who Fought Hitler: My Life with Arthur Szyk is Ungar’s mem­oir of his decades-long ded­i­ca­tion to restor­ing Szyk’s place in polit­i­cal and artis­tic his­to­ry. He recounts the ground­work behind the major exhibits he has orig­i­nat­ed or curat­ed in muse­ums and oth­er insti­tu­tions in Europe and the Unit­ed States, the numer­ous essays he has pub­lished, and the many lec­tures he has giv­en to rein­tro­duce Szyk. In 1994, the Israeli artist David Moss sug­gest­ed Ungar under­take pub­li­ca­tion of Szyk’s Hagad­dah based on repro­duc­tion of the orig­i­nal art. Although far from Ungar’s inten­tions, the sug­ges­tion lin­gered. After years of com­plex nego­ti­a­tions and pro­duc­tion prob­lems, in 2008 Ungar pub­lished deluxe and pre­mier fac­sim­i­le edi­tions of Szyk’s Hagad­dah, fol­lowed by a trade edi­tion in 2009.

Ungar’s con­nec­tion with Szyk is also per­son­al. His long friend­ship with Szyk’s daugh­ter and oth­er devot­ed and knowl­edge­able col­lec­tors has brought him into a world he would nev­er had known as a rab­bi. With Ungar as a guide, the read­er also learns some of the ins and outs of art collecting.