Page 291 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Introduction to the sculpture

content and spirit of his artwork would not have been significantly
cheerier if done earlier. And given his economic situation, he
probably could not have devoted much more time and energy to
carving or writing before the involuntary termination of his twelve-
to fifteen-hour workday in 1948.
It is evident that the narrative and the sculpture shed light on each
other, and that both are illuminated by the reminiscences of his
family; what was written on paper was also carved in stone and wood.
And this reinforcement or cross-verification of content provides a
great source of interest, if not controversy, to the study of his legacy.
For the purposes of this book, the interpretations given of the
sculpture in the catalogue raisonné go beyond what might be justified
in a dispassionate analysis of a stranger’s creative output. I realize
this, and offer my sometimes logically tenuous or tortuously
psychoanalytical readings of AR’s carvings with this rationale: they
may go too far, they may be dead wrong—but my study of the man
and his works has been long and deep, and if I do not express these
sorts of opinions for consideration here and now it is unlikely anyone
else ever will. As the ultimate goal of presenting AR’s legacy to his
descendants (and other interested parties) is to bring the man back to
awareness, what better means than the engenderment of a little
controversy—and what better way to honor his memory than to
engage, perhaps, in a bit of intellectual argument over matters
historical and Judaic, philosophical and psychological?
Of no controversy but a source of amazement is the strength,
manual dexterity and aesthetic refinement AR was able to bring to his
sculpture after a lifetime of back-breaking, mind-numbing labor. It is
almost as if the talents exercised casually during his childhood and
youth in Poland lay dormant for almost half a century, emerging
again in old age—not untouched by experiences of life in America,
but stubbornly retaining much of their original shtetl character. His
early fondness and aptitude for whittling and painting are
documented in the narrative, as is his participation in semi-skilled
labor of various types around the family compound, inevitable in a
semi-rural milieu of impoverished self-reliance. Further, despite his
family’s desire for him to rise socio-economically via religious study
and marriage into the mercantile class, his rebellion against that
287