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Artist Marc Chagall with other teachers and children at a JDC-funded school and camp for war orphans

Photographer unknown1921/1922

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives
New York, New York, United States

Orphaned boys, mainly refugees from pogroms in the Ukraine, found shelter and respite at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)-funded children's colony in Malakhovka. There, they had the opportunity to study at the feet of the prominent Jewish artists and intellectuals who gathered in this Moscow suburb, among them Marc Chagall (bottom right). In his autobiography, Ma Vie, Chagall said of these children, "Je les aimais. Ils ont attiré des images. Ils se jettaient dans les couleurs comme des betes sur des viandes" ("I loved them. They drew. They flung themselves into the colors as beasts upon meat"). To the left of Marc Chagall is a writer Zvi Girshkan. Second row from left to right: writer Simha Tomshinsky, Ukrainian Yiddish poet David Gofshtain (aka Hofstein), composer Yoel Engel, writer Der Nister (pen name for Pinchus Kahanovitch, a Ukrainian writer of Yiddish stories, fairy tales, and criticism and collaborator with Chagall), literary critic Yekhezkel Dobrushin.

Details

  • Title: Artist Marc Chagall with other teachers and children at a JDC-funded school and camp for war orphans
  • Creator: Photographer unknown
  • Date Created: 1921/1922
  • Location: Malakhovka, Russia
  • Physical Dimensions: 5 7/8" x 4 1/8"
  • Rights: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives
  • External Link: Link to JDC Archives Website
  • Medium: gelatin silver print, Photograph

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