Nachum Gutman

Israeli, born Bessarabia, 1898–1980 MAde Aliyah in 1905. Returning to Israel in 1927, after a long sojourn in Europe, Nachum Gutman undertook the illustration of C.N. Bialik's writings until the poet's death in 1937. His Illustrations of Bialik's "Legends" were the peak of this project, and his style- monumental, sculptural, primitive, influenced by Assyrian sculpture and Persian miniature- perfectly suited Bialik's biblical themes. Gutman was one of the major formulators of Eretz Israel art-starkly simple, earthy and powerful, aggressively asserting its sense of place. The booklet of protest illustrations by Gutman, published immediately after the 1929 riots, was the first manifestation of the dashing of the Eretz Israel myth of Arab-Jewish integration. Gutman, as one of the formulators of the idealization of the Arab in art, was the first to respond to the new identity crisis facing the Eretz Israel Jew. He was to return to the depiction of the East in his later work.