Hermann Struck
"Kriegsgefangene"

"Kriegsgefangene"

Album of WWI prisoners, 100 original lithographs, 

limited edition numbered 30 from 50, signed on the firs page. 

Folio (38.5 x 28 cm). Original canvas cover with gold-embossed stretched cover and publishing vignette. 3 pages with a list of the text pictures and lithographs, 27 (+1) pages Preface with the 60 text images, 1 sheet of intermediate title, 50 sheets with the 100 full-page lithographs. The lithographs with a legend, partly carefully added in pencil around the sites.  

Hermann Struck (German, 1876–1944) was born in Berlin, Germany to an Orthodox Jewish family.  He studied at the Berlin Academy under teacher Max Koner and was introduced to the art of etching.

Struck joined the Zionist movement at a young age. He was an artist and mentor who spent most of his time and effort focused on Jewish subjects.

During WWI, Struck served in the German army of Lithuania where he encountered Eastern European Jews and embraced their way of life (culture and art style).

Struck settled in Haifa, Palestine in 1923, where he depicted Jews and Arabs of the Middle East in his works. Struck created grandiose character heads of the people from the east, from Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Russia, scenes from the life of the shtetl with unique character images of a lost world of peasants and artisans, from streets of cities, villages, hamlets, agriculture.

He became a noted etcher and wrote a book entitled, “The Art of Etching”. He mentored such graphic artists and taught his techniques of etching to such artists as Marc Chagall, Max Lieberman, Lesser Ury and Joseph Budko.