Arthur Szyk

As a kid, I always saw these Polish circus posters
in doctors' offices.

I would stare at the text, not understanding
that Polish word with certainty.

I thought the word for "circus" was the 

name of the poster artist, not realizing there
were various artists.

By Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) - The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA 94070 www.szyk.org
CC BY-SA 4.0,
The grandeur of this print was emphasized with gilded accents!

When I was nine, I discovered the work of Arthur Szyk via an edition of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. I pored over these images and tried to understand how someone could accomplish such feats. How could I focus love to come out of MY hands and onto paper?

I couldn't remember Arthur Szyk's last name because it was not a word or arrangement of letters that I was used to understanding.
Tonight, after years of intermittent attempts to rediscover him (and accidentally searching for variations on the words "Cyrk" or "Czyk") I succeeded after searching for illustrated Andersen editions on abebooks! And I learned that Szyk was an activist!

Do Not Forgive Them, O Lord, For They Do Know What They Do (1949)

He made A LOT of anti- Nazi images, but I can't bring myself to post anything with a swastika on this blog (but here are some klan monsters?!) I'm so thankful to find these images, and so disheartened to find how timely they are.