The Schoolhouse in Montméjean
ART.001275
Art
1940s
New York United States
N/A
Pen and Ink on Paper
9.13 × 12 in. (23.19 × 30.48 cm)
Not on View
This pen-and-ink drawing depicts the upper room of the schoolhouse where Jacob and his wife, Sonia, hid from the Nazis. Unable to walk around during the day for fear of alerting the students below, he and Sonia lay on the bed and read the only book they had, the Bible.
Jacob (Judey) Barosin (1906–2001) was a Jewish artist born in Riga, Russia (now Latvia), who fled to Berlin, Germany, shortly before World War I. He was forced to flee again to Paris, France, in 1933, after Hitler rose to power. Due to anti-Jewish laws established by the Nazis, Jacob and Sonia spent the next four years running from the Gestapo. After the war, Jacob and Sonia immigrated to the United States, where Jacob made a living as a sketch artist for NBC-TV. He also illustrated the Jewish Family Bible, created a series on Jesus called the Life of Christ for the Evangelical and Reformed Church, and held numerous exhibitions in the United States and Israel. Collections of material related to Jacob Barosin’s life and work can be found at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yad Vashem, the Leo Baeck Institute, the Evangelical and Reformed Historical Society, and Museum of the Bible.
Originally created in the 1940s by Jacob Barosin, New York, New York; [1] Inherited in 2001 by Peter Garik and Katherine Greenblatt, Boston, Massachusetts; Donated in 2023 to Museum of the Bible, Washington, DC.
Notes: [1] Exact date is unknown, but the style is like other works by him in the 1940s, after he and his wife moved to the United States.
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