Page 290 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

THE SCULPTURE OF
ABRAHAM ROTHSTEIN

The past, since my wife passed away, has been like a motion
picture revolving in my mind: pictures of youth, of
manhood, of family life, of my children’s youth, of close
relatives, of the old birthplace, and of the land I was born in.

—from AR’s narrative

INTRODUCTION

As remarkable as his written testament is in reproducing the
character and experiences of the man, AR’s sculpture stands as an
even more powerful and evocative legacy. Like the narrative, the
carvings are a product of his declining years: if, as an old man, he was
able to develop his artistic skills and bring them to a level of
occasional brilliance, what could he have accomplished had he begun
half a century earlier? The works, created mainly between 1952 and
1963, represent the distillation of memories and interests of a
lifetime; a younger man might experiment more, be obsessed less
with his own past, create a body of work in tune with—and therefore
to some extent indistinguishable from—that of his contemporaries.
But AR largely went his own way, driven by a need to fill the time
left painfully empty by the unexpected and premature death of his
wife. Most of his testament was written immediately after that great
trauma and upheaval; almost all the sculpture was carved after his
literary efforts had concluded. It is possible to perceive a pall of
gloom over the entire opus, despite a number of pieces displaying
humor, Eros, and optimism; smiling faces are definitely in the
minority. Would this have been the case had he carved all his works
prior to 1952? To answer that speculative question, one would have
to refer back to AR’s own writings and to the reminiscences of those
who knew him best. The negative and withdrawn aspects of his
personality were always in evidence, so it may be supposed that the
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