Living Jewish Art

The art of Itshak Holtz (1925–2018) is an intimate guide to the Jewish world, approached with a sensitivity, confidence, and thorough familiarity that only someone living and breathing it could attain. Holtz was born in a small town near Warsaw and moved with his family to Jerusalem when he was ten years old; he pursued his artistic training there and in New York, at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. From the beginning of his artistic career, Holtz was drawn to depict the life of the Orthodox communities of which he himself was a part, in both New York and Jerusalem. His subjects were not idealized memories of the imagined past, but the real people around him, continuing an ancient way of life today. Holtz’s work envelops the viewer with its warmth and offers a sympathetic and honest insight into the inner world of his subjects, whom he pictures in their prayer houses, on their streets, engaged in their daily affairs. This lavishly illustrated volume surveys Holtz’s incomparable paintings, drawings, and prints of Jewish life. Organized by subject matter, it presents his scenes of worship, celebration, work, and everyday life, as well as his landscapes and portraits. An introductory essay by Richard McBee, the noted critic of Jewish art, traces Holtz’s biography and artistic development.