Page 292 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Introduction to the sculpture

career path was fueled not merely by the ongoing political and
intellectual ferment among the Jews of eastern Europe but by his
own restless desire to be engaged in physical activity, to be outside, to
work with his hands.
In this context, it should be recalled that Pelocvizna was a town of
butchers, a suburban slaughterhouse for Warsaw. If not a rabbi, then
a shochet was the highest attainment for a boy from that town. And
AR did pursue that goal for a time— learning how to wield and
sharpen knives, and kill animals according to kosher regulations. Had
there been any possibility of employment in that field, he might have
stayed with it; but, as he described it, the chief rabbi of Warsaw had
already ruled against one close relative breaking into the shochet guild,
so continuing his studies was hopeless (particularly when he could
make money working for smugglers).The point is that AR had a
background in the use of cutting tools that came to the fore when he
turned his hand to carving blocks of wood instead of chickens. It is
also probable that the repetitive strenuous asks he performed in the
junkyard in the years immediately prior to beginning the sculpture
worked to maintain and even increase the strength of his arms and
hands; had he remained idle in that period, given his age, he might
not have been able to apply the same force and precision to his
carving.
While many of his habits and character traits worked to enhance
his septuagenarian sculpting, others evidently acted as obstacles. His
self-perceived lack of education sent him on a haphazard quest for
“art training” (see the narrative and reminiscences, particularly those
of his daughter Carmel and granddaughter Judith). The pieces
resulting from his copying pictures in books and attempting
“classical” formats and subject matter are not particularly
successful—whatever he may have gained in technique from the
attempts. At the same time, he rarely worked from a live model, the
studies of hands being perhaps the lone exception. As a result, the
rendition of certain features of human anatomy (lips, ears, eyes in
profile) remained problematical for him. The relationship he
developed with Jon Raymond, a professional sculptor and fellow
eccentric, was beneficial in resolving some of AR’s technical

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