A Tale of Two Museums
Ester Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Collection

Chayim-Wolf Vayntraub (b. 1891-194? Władysław Zew Wajntraub)

Vaymtraub set design Box41.jpg

Title

Chayim-Wolf Vayntraub (b. 1891-194? Władysław Zew Wajntraub)

Description

Set designer for Yiddish theater in interwar Poland. V. was born Lyuvitsh Poland to Hasidic parents. From a young age, he was drawn to sketching and painting. A Polish art critic Tortshinksi recognized his early talents and the Polish artist, Stshenski took him under his wing, taught him about the craft of painting as well the role of nature. Vayntroyb benefited from the support of Poland’s Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts that supported his studies in France. In Paris, V. met the Russian artist and set designer Leon Bokst (1866-1924) whose influence is responsible for his decisive comitmentto the decorative arts and theater design. V. returned to Poland before WWI and then spent the subsequent four years on the front fighting in the Russian army. After the war he teamed up with decorative arts Moshe Appleboym (a monograph was written by Herman (Khayim) Goldberg (artist who had a photo studio and produced greeting cards and sought to reform the appearance of the Hebrew/Yiddish alphabet). Joseph Sandel writes of Vayntroyb:

V. was a fantasist, an Expressionist with mystic overtones,...V. belonged to the artistic group that produced the futuristic artistic literary journal Khaliastra and Albatross. He belonged to the not so big group of Polish modernists who drank from the waters of Western Positivist painting...In Warsaw, V. devoted himself to the Yiddish theater, especially the Kleynkunst stage and painted sets for Azazel and Sambatyon as well as the sets for Uriel Acosta, Rollands Wolves, Broderson’s opera David and Batsheva and Peretz’s At Night in the Old Marketplace (among others 5: 4321).”

Creator

Vayntraub

Rights

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Citation

Vayntraub, “Chayim-Wolf Vayntraub (b. 1891-194? Władysław Zew Wajntraub)
,” YIVO Online Exhibitions, accessed March 28, 2024, https://exhibitions.yivo.org/items/show/2294.
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