Obj. ID: 35668  Haggadah shel Pesach, Berlin, 1928

This text was prepared by William Gross:

Pesach Haggadah with illustrations by graphic artist Otto Geismar.
Otto (Nathan) Geismar (30 October 1873 – 30 March 1957) was an art teacher at the Berlin Jewish Community school for boys from 1904 till 1936. In 1930 the Jewish community granted him a scholarship for a several-months-long stay in Palestine. In 1939 Geismar and his wife emigrated to Brazil and, after World War II, moved to England to be closer to their daughter.
Geismar’s first published work, Tier-Schnell-Zeichnen was published in Berlin in 1926 as a drawing manual. One year later he produced his Haggadah, which contains some of the most original Haggadah illustrations known to date. Drawn in an a style that has been characterized as ‘minimalist’ and ‘expressionistic’, these illustrations are marked by bold typography, radically simplified lines, freedom of treatment of traditional themes (e.g., the illustration for the song Had Gadya) and humour (the wicked son as a mocker who thumbs his nose at the wise one; the Plagues of Egypt; a child overcome by the wine and Feztivities at the end of the seder banquet, etc.). Geismar’s optimistic ‘logo’ can be seen at the end of the book: a little bird chirping in a tree next to an open cage, with the Hebrew initials Aleph Gimel = Otto Geismar. His Haggadah was published first in a Hebrew/Aramaic edition (Berlin/Lepizig, 1927), and in two separate bilingual (German and Dutch) editions (Berlin, c.1928 and re-editions).
In the same year as his Haggadah, Geismar’s biblical illustrations for children were published as Bilder Bibel by Rubin Mass (Berlin, 1928, and republished by the same in Jerusalem, 1940. Later, in Israel, the illustrations accompanied books of children’s poetry and rhymes by L. Avishai and by L. Kipnis). In the 1930's, while still in Berlin, Geismar illustrated and designed a Scroll of Esther, which was published by Dr. Herbert Löwenstein in Berlin and Tel-Aviv in 1936 (See ID 35191). Both of these other Geismar works are in the Gross Family Collection.