Ilya Schor, A Drawing of a Holocaust Fire

Ilya Schor, A Drawing of a Holocaust Fire

Drawing displays a horrific scene, the burning of people, scrolls and belongings that took place in WWII during the Holocaust.

Ink on board. Framed.

Signed lower left

Great condition

15.5cm x 10.5cm

Ilya Schor - (1904 – 1961)  was born in Złoczów (Galicia), in the Austrian Empire (now Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine) in 1904. He came from a deeply Hasidic family. His father, Naftali, was a folk-artist, painting colorfully illustrated store signs for local merchants. Schor first trained as an apprentice in metalcrafts and engraving before enrolling at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1930 where he studied painting. In 1937, Ilya was awarded a grant by the Polish government to study in Paris. He exhibited successfully at the Salon d'Automne in 1938.

Ilya Schor and his artist wife, Resia, immigrated to the United States in December 1941, from Marseilles, via Lisbon, after fleeing Paris in late May 1940.

In New York City, Ilya Schor began artwork that would keep fresh his memories of life of the Jews of the shtetls of Eastern Europe, working in the many materials and with the numerous skills at his disposal. He worked on major commissions for synagogues in the United States.

His works are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Jewish Museum (New York), the Jerusalem Great Synagogue Jacob and Belle Rosenbaum Mezuzah Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, and the Sydney Jewish Museum (Sydney, Australia).