IDA – Page 2 – Index of Names & Places

The Cheerful One

Posted on July 26, 2023 | by IDA

Alisa Wirz Werblowsky, 1920–2014, champion swimmer, champion shot-putter, folk dancer, teacher.

Born Liselotte Wilhelmina Wirz in Munich, Germany, Alisa Wirz Werblowsky received a new Hebrew name, reflecting her sunny disposition, from her classmates in Jerusalem. Like her mother, Bella Thannhauser Wirz, with whom she emigrated to Palestine in 1933, Alisa was a strong-willed, independent woman. Both were outstanding swimmers and, in 1942, became the first women to swim the Sea of Galilee. They bested the existing record (5 hours) by 40 minutes. Alisa repeated her feat in 1944 in 3 hours and 20 minutes, improving on her former time by one hour and ten minutes. She taught English and sports at the Reali School in Haifa before she attended Boston University’s Sargent College of Physical Education in Cambridge to study for her masters. Her aim was to “organize a physical education school which will contribute to the welfare of her people in establishing a Jewish National state.”¹ When she furthered her studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1948, she may well have become the first Israeli college student in the state of Wisconsin.² During her years in the United States, she taught and performed Israeli folk dancing, was active in Jewish youth group activities and lectured occasionally. During the summers, she worked a Jewish sleep-away camps in New Hampshire. She was for American newspapers at the time, the very model of Israeli youth: athletic, capable, enthusiastic and committed. After her return to Israel, she married scholar R.J. Zwi Werblowsky.

Alisa (known in the family as Fitzi) lived with her mother at 8 Keren Kayemet Street in Rehavia from the late 1930s. She remained in contact with Ismar David for many years, mainly through seasonal greeting cards.

About the S.S. Flandre

Posted on July 6, 2023 | by IDA

S.S. Flandre, 1952–1994, ocean liner on the French Line, used for North Atlantic and Caribbean service, until sold to the Costa Armatori Line in 1968. Cruised the Caribbean under the names Carla C, Princess Carla (while leased to Princess Cruises) and Carla Costa, and was inspiration for the TV series, The Love Boat. Transferred in 1992 to Epirotiki Line and renamed Pallas Athena, mainly for week-long cruises on the Aegean Sea. Irreparably burned in a dockside fire in 1994.

On board the S.S. Flandre — A party, perhaps the Gala Night, aboard the S.S. Flandre, 1959.

Despite a very inauspicious debut voyage—the Flandre had so many problems that dockworkers nicknamed it ‘the Flounder’¹—this French Line flagship had a long distinguished career, earning the affection of generations of crew and passengers. Built at a cost of $20 million and launched on October 31, 1951, the 20,469-gross-ton-vessel was relatively small and swift. It could travel at a speed of 23 knots and reach Le Havre from New York in six days, including a stop in Great Britain on the sixth day. Interiors were splendidly outfitted, especially in first class. Ads compared the ship to “a veritable chateau-on-the-sea” and the voyage to “6 extra days ‘in France’” with prices in 1959 ranging from $337 (First Class) to $200 (Tourist). All passengers enjoyed superb French cooking, French wine, orchestra for dancing and concerts, sports, accommodations for children, and the proverbial much more.²

Hortense Mendel and Ismar David boarded the S.S. Flandre on May 25, 1959. It would be their first and only trip together outside the United States. Until then, vacations usually meant summer holidays in Rockport, Massachusetts, although in 1955, they went to Aspen for the International Design Conference and from there to the Pacific Coast. That Ismar’s naturalization papers were issued in 1956 perhaps explains why they had traveled only domestically in the early years of their marriage. (Hortense had been to Europe several times and to the Carribbean and South America, since applying for her first passport in 1925.) The Flandre landed first at Plymouth and then at Le Havre, two days before the couple’s sixth wedding anniversary. After lunching on roast loin of veal and potatoes Bataille, they debarked in Le Havre to begin a nearly two-month trip that included visits to France, Israel, Germany, The Netherlands and Great Britain.

The Hapsburg Versailles

Posted on June 27, 2023 | by IDA

Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace, the 1,441-room summer residence of the Hapsburg rulers, built on property they acquired in 1569.

Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach’s initial 1688 drawings set a grand design in motion, but it was not until three quarters of a century later that Empress Maria Theresa and her architect, Nicolaus Pacassi, began the decades of building that would culminate in the extravagant Schönbrunn Palace. Built on a scale to rival Versailles, the magnificent baroque complex was and remains renowned for its gardens, follies and zoo, much of which have been open to the public since 1779. On November, 11, 1918, when Emperor Karl I issued his proclamation relinquishing governmental power and departed Schönbrunn, the new Austrian Republic took possession of the palace with almost immediate plans to make it a museum. The zoo had been devastated by the war, but by the next year, tours of the rooms were likely taking place¹ and more and more of the formerly private garden areas were opened to the public. From April 20, 1919, organized groups of children were permitted to visit the Fasanengarten (the pheasant garden).

Like Vienna, the city of Breslau was not within the theater of combat, but its citizens suffered profoundly economically and from shortage of food. From the onset of the war, prices soared. As wheat became scarce, bakers were allowed to augment wheat flour with potato flour. In 1915, bread was rationed. And later, other foodstuffs as well. Then, during the disastrous Kohlrübenwinter (Turnip Winter) of 1917, the potato harvest was only 50% of its peacetime output.² The only relatively plentiful substitute was the rutabaga. German authorities published copious instructions on how to make everything out of turnips, as if it was actually possible to make everything out of turnips. Consequently, women struggled to make soup, cutlets, bread and cake out of a vegetable that had traditionally been animal feed and had significantly less calories than potatoes. The populace were severely malnourished. Many died. After the Armistice, organizations and individuals stepped up to help children affected by the war. The newly-formed Save the Children in England and Sweden provided food and clothing for kids in cities across Germany. Julie Bikle in Switzerland, for instance, organized 6-week, later 8-week, stays for German children with families and institutions in eastern Switzerland. Others spearheaded similar programs in Holland and Denmark.

Ismar David turned four just one month after the First World War started. He could nevertheless remember that bread was sold a day after it had been baked, so that slices could be cut thinner. He recalled picking the chaff from his teeth, because fillers were used to extend volume. And he was one of the, in his words, “starving war children,” who were sent to vacation outside of the country after the war. His host family had a maidservant whose pleasure it was to rise early and devise desserts for the household. Every day something different. So far, we have no record how the trip was organized, where David was sent or how long he remained. We only know that he passed through or near Vienna, a city which also had its share of suffering children. He cannot have been much more than 10, when he and another boy in the program ran off for a day to experience the wonder of Schönbrunn Palace.

32 Minutes with Hortense Mendel

Posted on May 26, 2023 | by IDA

In the olden days before digital photography, double exposures were either made with considerable effort and planning or, simply, by mistake. These three mash-ups of Hortense Mendel in her Bronx living room with landscapes of a New England boat basin were obviously done the easy way.

Fortunately, we can still see enough of what inspired her husband to snap a few pictures in the first place. The almost cinematic image sequence encompasses family history (the cast-iron gothic-revival mantel clock with hand-painted pastoral, a remnant of the sturdy middle-class background of Hortense’s German-born father) and popular culture (the “Lacy Lavender Supreme” African violets, a house plant whose availability and varieties had only really begun to take off in the previous ten years). It touches on spiritual awareness (the havdalah candle) and personal details (Ismar David’s own pocket watch). Hortense herself is reflected in the large mirror on a sea of patterned wallpaper, fussing over some unseen domestic activity. Maybe she was setting the table or packing for the couple’s regular summer vacation in Rockport, Massachusetts. The weather was warm enough to open the window. In any case, we are privy to a glimpse of their private lives, simultaneously immediate and very, very far away.

Promised Land

Posted on May 26, 2023 | by IDA

Ellen Thorbecke, 1902–1973, photographer, journalist, author.

Ellen Kolban grew up in Berlin and on the estate of her father in what is now the Czech Republic. She attended conservatories and studied piano—her mother was opera singer Hermine Grundmann—before studying economics at the University of Berlin, where she met her first husband. As Ellen Catleen, she became a free-lance journalist, writing about music and theater for the Berliner Tageblatt and the Neue Freie Presse. In 1931, she bought her first camera, a Rolleiflex, and began to use it professionally when she traveled to China.

She spent much of the decade in Shanghai and Beijing, where her second husband, Willem Thorbecke, served as ambassador of the Netherlands. Ellen Thorbecke provided stories and images for a variety of German publications, as well as economic reports for the Berliner Tageblatt. Her series Chinareisen ganz allein (Solo Travels in China) appeared in the Deutsch-Chineseische Nachrichten. In 1934, English publishers Kelly & Walsh published Thorbecke’s first book about China, Peking Studies, with illustrations by another expatriate in China, Friedrich Schiff. Thorbecke and Schiff established a certain style in this and subsequent books together that cleverly wove commentary and imagery, sometimes penetrating the conceptual boundary between drawings and photography.

The war forced Thorbecke and her family to leave China for South Africa in 1941. In 1944, Harper & Brother approached her to make a work similar to her books about China, which would illustrate the development of Palestine and her family lived in Jerusalem for a year. They spent part of 1945 in Lebanon, where Ellen Thorbecke worked on a book about Beruit, that would remain unpublished.¹ The family lived in the United States from 1946 until 1960. In the early years Ellen Thorbecke traveled and spoke extensively, addressing European issues and often the Middle East. “She is noted for fearlessness in her reports and opinions and her addresses correct many a prejudice and misconception.”²
In 1960, they made the Netherlands their home, but still spent half each year in Florida.

Ismar David visited Lebanon in 1945 and made, at least, a color sketch for the cover of Problem Area, Thorbecke’s unpublished Beirut work. Harper issued her Palestine book, Promised Land, in 1947 with cover, illustration and typography by David. The lively integration of text, photography, drawings and diagrams continued in many ways the style Schiff and Thorbecke had begun to develop in 1934. John Haynes Holmes wrote “This book will do more for the Jews in Palestine that a dozen official investigations and a thousand conference resolutions”³

About J.S. Haimson

Posted on March 14, 2023 | by IDA

Jacob S. Haimson, bookbinder.

J.S. Haimson’s bookbinding establishment was located at 25 King George Avenue in Jerusalem. Palestine Post art critic Theodore F. Meysels called him one of the “three outstanding craftsmen” who created the cover for the sixth Golden Book of the Keren Kayemeth, the Jewish National Fund.

Ismar David, who made the design and the lacquer covers for the binding, Werner Hess, goldsmith, and the bookbinder Haimson have between them produced a book which is bound to arouse the admiration not merely of the bibliophile, but to every lover of beautiful things.¹

It is highly likely that David created this ad that appeared in a 1944 Haifa, Jaffa and Tel Aviv telephone directory. J.S. Haimson offered services in: book binding, photo albums, picture mounting, picture framing, map mounting, files and folder, fancy leatherwork and cardboard boxes. The logo on the following page of the directory is probably David’s design as well.

J.S. Haimson, Bookbinder — Ad for J.S. Haimson, bookbinder,
in the 1944 telephone directory for Haifa, Jaffa and Tel Aviv. Israel State Archives

About Werner Hess

Posted on March 14, 2023 | by IDA

Werner Hess, goldsmith.

Theodore F. Meysels, art critic at the Jerusalem Post, once told a colleague, “…any fool could go to a show and write something about it. The trick was to write about it in an interesting manner without actually going to view it.”¹ Nevertheless, we rely on the wily Mr. Meysels for this description of the work of Werner Hess in the summer of 1940:

Jerusalem’s “Fleet Street” has another little show case marking the workshop of the goldsmith Werner Hess. Jewellery of a technical achievement delights the eye. Mr. Hess tells us that he got this artistic training after perfecting himself in the goldsmith’s trade. This is the characteristic of his work which unites beauty of work with perfect technique. He sets great store on getting into personal touch with his customers, resetting conventional material brought from Europe in jewellery that bespeaks the personality of his clients.²

Hess executed the metal work for Ismar David’s design of the the sixth Golden Book of the Keren Kayemeth (the Jewish National Fund). (J.S. Haimson made the leather binding.) Again, Meysels provides a vivid description:

The front shows a typical Palestinian landscape, fertile fields in the foreground, behind them a village at the foot of the Galilean mountains topped by snow-capped Hermon. The technical execution is first class. No one could have dreamed that lacquer painting of this quality could be found outside Japan.

A delicately wrought metal gate gives a view of David’s sunny landscape and symbolizes the opening of the gates of Palestine which it is the Keren Kayemeth’s task to encompass. The perspective of the half open gate on the book cover is, presumably, an artistic compromise. But it does not detract from Werner Hess’ masterly execution of the metal work. The book’s binding staple with clasps makes it impervious to careless handling. You can open the giant volume at will, the binding staple divides the weight so evenly as to exclude any risk of damage. At long last Werner Hess seems to have solved the problem of mounting and handling heavy volumes of this type.³

On June 1, 1942, Hess and his wife Gretta welcomed a son at the Shaare Zedek Hospital.⁴

About Sidney Eisenshtat

Posted on October 4, 2022 | by IDA

Sidney Eisenshtat, 1914–2004, architect.

Sanctuary of Temple Emanuel, Los Angeles, California, c. 1954. University of Southern California::Architecture and Fine Arts Library, SE Box 22.

At the height of his career, Sidney Eisenshtat was considered one of the half dozen leading architects in the country.¹ Born in Connecticut, he moved to California with his family when he was twelve. He entered the University of Southern California at 16 and at 25, became the youngest architect to get a license in the state. Although he designed private residences, public facilities and large-scale commercial buildings—many of which became L.A. landmarks—he is perhaps best known today for his innovative, often soaring, synagogue work. His buildings were dramatic, light, airy and spacious, displaying a kinship with the expressionism of Eric Mendelsohn, whom he greatly admired. “Design is not wall or decorations. It is only space occupied by human beings. You have to enclose that space, and if you do it well, it is good design.”² Nevertheless, art took a prominent place in his work. “Eisenshtat, who plans all his major jobs to include art, makes it a practice to work with architectural artists as often as possible.”³ He “insisted that art be included in the building’s budget.”⁴

Eisenshtat’s first major religious commission came from the congregation of Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills. Stephen Kayser recommended Ismar David to Eisenshtat to design bronze Hebrew lettering for “two wall tablets (10 Commandments) … of white marble, each 11′ high and 3′ 6″ wide.” Eisenshtat and David enjoyed a good working relationship on the project. The two men met during the Davids’ trip west in the summer of 1955.

Letter from Sidney Eisenshtat to Sidney Eisenshtat

Draft letter from Ismar David to Sidney Eisenshtat

Correspondence between Sidney Eisenshtat and Ismar David and Hortense Mendel. Ismar David papers, box 7, folder 151, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

About John Dreyfus

Posted on September 15, 2022 | by IDA

John Gustave Dreyfus, 1918–2002, book designer, printing historian, typographic advisor to Monotype Corporation, founding member and second president of ATypI.

Ismar David and John Dreyfus at the fiftieth anniversary celebration of Chiswick Books, September 21, 1985.

His erudition on a wide range of topics made him a respected lecturer and author, but John Dreyfus was universally loved and admired for his generosity, elegance—sartorial and rhetorical (in English, French or German)—and kindness.

Like Rollo Silver, Dreyfus was a mainstay at the Heritage of the Graphic Arts lecture series, organized by Bob Leslie’s at Gallery 303. Beginning in 1965, when his topic was Jan Van Krimpen, whom he had known well, until 1980, Dreyfus spoke nearly every year. The keepsake for his Baskerville lecture in 1971 included a reprint of Ismar David’s Baskerville portrait, originally done for a type specimen produced by the Composing Room. On April 26, 1971, Ismar David wrote:

Dear John,
We are looking forward to your lecture at Gallery 303. It has always been delightful and instructive to listen to you, and I am sure the lecture on Baskerville will be no exception.

Dr. Leslie told me that you intend to use the Baskerville drawing from a Composing Room type speicmen for a keepsake. I will be pleased to se it revived and you certainly have my permission to use it.

So, we, Dorothy and myself are expectin you in the fall.

With best wishes…¹

Ismar David papers, box 2, folder 42, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT.

About Beth Israel Memorial Park

Posted on August 19, 2022 | by IDA

Beth Israel Memorial Park, a cemetery and mausoleum complex in Woodbridge, New Jersey.

Construction at Beth Israel Memorial Park, Woodbridge, New Jersey, c. 1965.
Ismar David papers, box 16, folder 344, Cary Graphic Arts Collection, RIT. Photographed by Jiageng Lin.

Beth Israel was founded in the 1927, based on the relatively modern concept of a memorial park. An ad that ran in the New York area read:

At Beth Israel Memorial Park you find a modern Jewish Burial Estate where all is dignity, beauty and peace. There are sweeping, unbroken vistas of lovely, landscaped lawns and gardens and NOT A SINGLE TOMBSTONE. And yet the reverent traditions of the past are fully preserved, for at Beth Israel graves are marked with flat bronze plaques of a type first used in Palestine many years ago. These handsome markers are even more durable than stone and are in full accordance with all Jewish precepts.¹

The Shipper family assumed ownership in 1939.² By 1951, Leon Shipper was vice president and had already overseen features for the area, including a Holocaust memorial. The park eventually expanded to include Christian and non-sectarian sections, as well as mausoleum complexes. Gedeon Takaro handled advertising for a period of time.

Ismar David’s first work for Beth Israel was the design for the Bible Archway in the Bible Gardens, dedicated in 1957. He went on to design mausoleums and general layouts, bronze grave markers graphics and decorative features for Beth Israel, as well as Rose Hills, King David, and other parks owned by the Shipper family until at least the late 1970s. David worked closely with the Shippers and the J.C. Milne Organization, who also built mausoleums for Pinelawn Memorial Park, and was involved with the technical minutiae needed for Jas. H. Matthews & Co. to produce a six-paneled bronze door for a private mausoleum at Beth Israel.

In the early 1970s, when Ismar and Dorothy David purchased a coop apartment, Leon Shipper wrote a touching tribute in what would have been a pro forma reference letter:

In the past 22 years, Mr. David has deigned works of art and architecture for our organization which has been widely acclaimed by leading critics and museums and members of his profession.

What is more important is that he is a warm, compassionate, intelligent human being and devoted friend.

Ismar David at Beth Israel Memorial Park — Ismar David, standing in front of the glass chapel at Beth Israel Memorial Park, 1966.