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Img. ID: 511600

© Gross Family Collection, Photographer: Unknown, -

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

Solomon Borisovich Yudovin (1892-1954) was born in the Vitebsk district village of Beshenkovichi to a family of Jewish artisans. His earliest art training was in Vitebsk with Yehuda Pen, the famous teacher with whom Chagall also studied. In 1910 he went to St. Petersburg to attend the Drawing School of the Committee for the Support of the Arts. During 1911-1914, Yudovin participated in the Jewish ethnographic expedition through the rural areas of Volynia and Podolia in the Ukraine. The purpose of this expedition, sponsored by Baron Horace-Guenzburg and led by the famous playwright An-Sky (S. A. Rapoport), the author of The Dybbuk, was to document the rapidly disappearing Jewish cultural life of the shtetl. Yudovin's task was to photograph and copy the many items that were collected and then deposited in the Jewish National Museum in St. Petersburg.

His artistic career was interrupted by the exigencies of World War I, but in 1918 he returned to Vitebsk, soon to become a teeming avant-garde art center, where he resumed his career upon entering the Vitebsk Art Institute. Yudovin was a figurative artist with interest in the cultural past of the Russian Jews and he was only minimally influenced by the modernistic trends then brewing in Vitebsk. However, his interest in Jewish 'folk art' was very influential among such Vitebsk modernists as Alter and Kandinsky. In 1923 he moved to St. Petersburg apparently to become the Jewish National Museum's caretaker, even living in the museum building during 1929 through 1931 in order to guard the collection while that institution was shut down.

Name/Title
| Unknown
Object
Object Detail
Settings
Unknown
Date
circa 1917
Synagogue active dates
Reconstruction dates
Artist/ Maker
Historical Origin
Unknown
Community type
Unknown |
Congregation
Unknown
Location
Unknown |
Site
Unknown
School/Style
Unknown|
Period
Unknown
Period Detail
Collection
Documentation / Research project
Unknown
Material / Technique
Paper, Watercolors, Pinted
Material Stucture
Material Decoration
Material Bonding
Material Inscription
Material Additions
Material Cloth
Material Lining
Tesserae Arrangement
Density
Colors
Construction material
Measurements
Height: 23.8 cm, Width: 29.2 cm FRAMED
Height
Length
Width
Depth
Circumference
Thickness
Diameter
Weight
Axis
Panel Measurements
Condition
Extant
Documented by CJA
Surveyed by CJA
Present Usage
Present Usage Details
Condition of Building Fabric
Architectural Significance type
Historical significance: Event/Period
Historical significance: Collective Memory/Folklore
Historical significance: Person
Architectural Significance: Style
Architectural Significance: Artistic Decoration
Urban significance
Significance Rating
Textual Content
Unknown |
Languages of inscription
Unknown
Shape / Form
Unknown
0
Ornamentation
Custom
Contents
Codicology
Scribes
Script
Number of Lines
Ruling
Pricking
Quires
Catchwords
Hebrew Numeration
Blank Leaves
Direction/Location
Façade (main)
Endivances
Location of Torah Ark
Location of Apse
Location of Niche
Location of Reader's Desk
Location of Platform
Temp: Architecture Axis
Arrangement of Seats
Location of Women's Section
Direction Prayer
Direction Toward Jerusalem
Coin
Coin Series
Coin Ruler
Coin Year
Denomination
Signature
Colophon
Scribal Notes
Watermark
Hallmark
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Trade Mark
Binding
Decoration Program
Summary and Remarks
Remarks
Suggested Reconsdivuction
History/Provenance
Main Surveys & Excavations
Bibliography
Short Name
Full Name
Volume
Page
Type
Documenter
|
Author of description
William Gross |
Architectural Drawings
|
Computer Reconstruction
|
Section Head
|
Language Editor
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Donor
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Negative/Photo. No.
Gross_110.011.001A.jpg