Page 300 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Introduction to the sculpture

their heads on the wall—but that is as deep as one can go in
analyzing the animal studies.
Finally, AR produced a number of pieces classified here as
“utilitarian.” This category reaches the vague boundary between art
and craft, and probably crosses it by including a few pieces which are
not carvings at all, but handmade items of domestic use. It also
invades the territory of decorative art, for AR sculpted some pieces
of fruit and a pipe which are purely imitative and functionless. The
canes form an interesting series, one perhaps taking on a life of its
own for the artist; he could not and did not use all the walking sticks
he fashioned. Rather, it would seem that the opportunity to work in
miniature on the knobs kept him at it (see the catalog listings for
more on this subject). The figures on the canes could have led to
their categorization under studies or genres, but in general they add
nothing new to those groupings. Of the toys and games, it should be
noted that all have some pedagogic purpose, be it religious (aleph-bet
blocks, dreidel, grager) or purely intellectual (chess sets). Whatever the
value may be of distributing AR’s work into categories and discussing
it piecemeal, the works should always be considered a complete
oeuvre, the expression of one man’s emotional, philosophical, political,
historical, and ethical concerns. They are remarkable in their breadth
and depth, their insight into the artist’s view of human nature,
literature, and Jewish identity. More importantly, perhaps, since the
vast majority of the pieces were not produced for any particular
audience (and certainly not for any market), they reflect the character
of their creator in a way that the works of most sculptors do not.
Thus they form an integral part of AR’s legacy, reinforcing and
enriching his writings and the memories recorded by those who knew
him.

Addendum, 2019

Several years after finishing this book, I happened to come across
a very interesting book in a friend’s library: A Jewish Town in Wood
Sculpture, containing about fifty wood carvings of shtetl types. Berel
Satt, the artist, was a contemporary of AR, emigrating from Poland at
about the same time at the same age to the United States. By then he

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