Irvin Unger: Athur Szyk’s John the Baptist

Irvin Unger, Reviving the Artist Who Fought Hitler: My Life with Arthur Szyk (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2026).

“My soul is bound up with his soul.”

Irvin Unger is Arthur Szyk’s John the Baptist. Let me tell you why!

He is that rare combination of art dealer and art critic who, almost single-handedly, revived interest and resurrected to artistic prominence Arthur Szyk, a Polish American Jewish artist whose work was featured seemingly everywhere during World War II and who marshalled his talents in the battle for freedom.

Many Jews will be familiar with the Szyk Haggadah, first published in England in 1940, translated with a commentary by Cecil Roth, in which the traditional text is enhanced with a then most contemporary artistic interpretation. Pharoah was not just an ancient historical oppressor of the Jews, but Szyk bluntly points to the Pharoah of his day. In 1940 there was no question as to who was Pharoah. The only question was who were his minions.

The Four Sons are four different types of Jews. The quest for freedom is the same, the artistic commentary bold, defiant, brilliantly illustrated in majestic colors, yet the artist is anything but subtle. I remember the book as a child, one of the many Haggadot that graced our Passover table, the text always invites commentary. The art was provocative, deliberately so, defiantly so.

Students of the Holocaust remember Szyk’s powerful illustrations of Ben Hecht’s call to arms that appeared in newspapers and on posters supporting the urgent activities of the Bergson group, demanding action so desperately needed to save European Jewry.

And visitors to Forest Hills Jewish Center were always struck by the 32-foot Szyk ornate ark that served as the Holy Ark for that once thriving synagogue.

Yet without Unger, Szyk might have been relegated to an artist of his time, popular, prominent and perceptive but not a man of lasting import.

A native of Trenton, New Jersey, Unger grew up in a middle-class Jewish home. His father was a poker player of some renown. The younger Unger was and is a gambler of another sort. Unger studied for the rabbinate less as a calling and more as a means to avoid Vietnam. He was not the only one. Many of my generation’s most prominent rabbis made the same choice, including this reviewer. But he brought to his rabbinate the same drive and determination that he was later to bring to his calling. After a dozen or so years, he was burned out. The rabbinate takes a toll, and Unger’s health was suffering.

What is an exhausted rabbi to do? He became an antiquarian and soon found his footing, his calling. He rediscovered Szyk buying the Haggadah as a gift to his wedding party. And thus began a journey linking his talent and drive, his seemingly inexhaustible energy and his keen promotional talents to the task of rebuilding the reputation of a once prominent artist who had seemingly been forgotten.

Artists need their promoters and collectors; they also need their interpreters. Samuel Bak is blessed by Bernie Pucker, his gallery owner, but his work was best understood by the late Lawrence Langer, who shared his profound understanding of Bak with students and collectors both. Unger performs both functions for Szyk.

Readers will have difficulty separating Unger from Szyk because for so many decades they have been linked, but in this book, one can gain an appreciation for the brilliance of Szyk’s art, his intense loyalty to his people, the Jewish people, the Polish people – he was a native of Lodz, who emigrated before the Holocaust but never forgot the land of his birth and the best of the values of Poland – and to his adopted homeland of the United States.

They will gain a sense of the boldness of his work as an illustrator. Permit two examples: two soldiers, one Black and one White, World War II soldiers, ask what would you do with Hitler?  “I would have made him a Negro and dropped him somewhere in the United States.”

Szyk depicted a crucified Jesus dying among the slaughtered Jews in what later became known as the Holocaust. Jesus would have been murdered by those who thought they were his followers.

They will see in this richly illustrated book printed on high-quality paper – Unger is a perfectionist –  the diversity of Szyk’s artistic offering and his tireless efforts to use his talents to fight for freedom, fight against the Nazis, and fight for the Jewish people in the struggle to call attention to their slaughter and later to establish the State of Israel. He was, as Unger depicted him, a Soldier in Art.

But Unger has written many books about Szyk. This book tells us how he rediscovered Szyk, embraced him and used his brilliant talents, charm, chutzpah, daring, and drive to create exhibitions and books, to collect and market Szyk art and to reprint the Szyk Haggadah in multiple editions with exquisite taste, dazzling colors, and breathtaking binding, marketing them to collectors and libraries, even to the Vatican. It shows his talents as a businessman, and artistic creator. Yet once a Rabbi, always so: Unger understood that the Haggadah needed a new translation and new commentary, so he turned to Rabbi Byron Sherwin, disciple of Heschel and a distinguished rabbi/scholar.

Unger’s personal triumph is nothing short of spectacular. He sold his own collection to the late San Francisco-based philanthropist Tad Taube for $10 million, who then donated it to the Magnes Museum in Berkeley. Parted from the collection of his lifetime, from the man whose works he cherished, now graced with resources, he started all over again and collected even more of Szyk’s work.

Were that not enough, he convinced Don Bacugalupi, President of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, a museum of storytelling, and Lucas himself, to buy the original Haggadah paintings of the enduring story retold in each generation.

So how does one succeed so wondrously? Drive and determination, perseverance and imagination, friendship and loyalty all of which Unger has in abundance. Yet even with all those talents, one needs luck, and a product that one believes in and the ability to convey to others. Unger does that so very well in this moving and witty, candid and convincing autobiography.