Aizik-Adolphe Féder
Aizik-Adolphe Féder
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Aizik-Adolphe Féder |
Background
Féder was born in Odessa to a family of Jewish merchants. 1905, he joined the Bund, a Jewish workers'
organization which supported the failed 1905 Revolution. Because of Féder's involvement with this group,
he was forced to flee the country. He
went to Berlin and studied art there. He went to Geneva, living there 1908-09 and studying at the city's
art academy. 1910, Féder went to Paris
where he studied and worked for two years at the Academie Julien and at Henri
Matisse's informally organized art school. He was considered one of the Ecole de Paris artists seen frequently
at the Rotonde café in Montparnasse, and in 1912 his works were exhibited at
the Salon d'Automne. Féder loved the
landscape of the South of France, which appears in many of his paintings. His works were favorably reviewed in Paris
by such art critics as Gustave Kahn and he was commissioned to illustrate several
books, including a book of poetry by Arthur Rimbaud. 1926 he traveled to Palestine, where he produced
a body of works on such themes as young Jewish pioneers, old Jews at prayer,
yeshiva students, Yemenites, Arabs and Bedouins. He returned to Paris several
months later. With the outbreak of war, Féder refused to leave Paris and joined
the underground.
Arrest and Imprisonment
at Cherche-Midi and Drancy
He and his wife,
Sima, were betrayed to the authorities and arrested on June 10, 1942.
They were imprisoned at Cherche-Midi and in September 1942 Féder was
sent to and interned at Drancy. Féder drew many
portraits of his fellow inmates, some of which his widow donated to the Ghetto
Fighters' House art collection.
Deportation to Auschwitz
December 13, 1943 Féder
was deported from Drancy to Auschwitz,
where he died.
Bibliography:
Fredj, Jacques.
L'internement des juifs sous Vichy. Paris, 1996.
Gauthier,
Maximilian. "Adolphe Féder,"
L'art vivant (October 1934).
Kahn,
Gustave. Adolphe Féder. Paris, Ca.
1929.
Lissim,
Simon. "Adolphe Féder," Mobilier
et décoration (April 1932).
Memorial in Honor of Jewish Artists,
Victims of Nazism. Haifa, undated.
Nos artistes: Morts victimes
du Nazisme. No. 4 (February 1960).
Novitch,
Miriam. Resistenza spirituale: 120 disegni dai campi di concentramento e dai ghetti,
1940-1945. (Spiritual Resistance: 120 Drawings from Concentration Camps and
Ghettos 1940-1945). Milan, 1979.
Novitch,
Miriam, Lucy S. Dawidowicz, and Tom L. Freudenheim. Spiritual Resistance: Art
from Concentration Camps, 1940-1945. Philadelphia,
1981.
Schneid,
Naftali. "Figures in Drancy in
the Paintings of Adolphe Féder," Holocaust
and Resistance Research Papers (February 1952).
Silver,
Kenneth E. and Romy Golan. The Circle of Montparnasse: Jewish Artists
in Paris 1905-1945. New York, 1985.