Bidspirit auction | (LISSITZKY, ELIEZER). Yingel Tsingel Khvat

(LISSITZKY, ELIEZER). Yingel Tsingel Khvat [“The Mischievous Boy”]. Delightful childrens’ story by the Yiddish poet Mani-Leib [Menachem Leib Brahinsky] about a Shtetl in which the Summer ran away, yet the Winter did not arrive. The rainy Autumn lingered endlessly, until one day the magical intervention of mischievous Yingl Tsingl brought the eagerly awaited first snows of Winter. Facsimile of the second edition. Title page and 10 pages of Yiddish text. Color cover, title page design, black and white text illustrations, initcaps and page numbers design by El Lissitzky. Original color printed wrappers, front cover with institutional stamp. 8vo. Mexico City, Verlag Yiddishe Shul, 1940’s. RARE. NO COPY LOCATED ON WORLDCAT OR ONLINE.      A rare (albeit late and unofficial) edition of a classic Jewish children's book by one of the 20th-century’s most important Jewish illustrators.     Based on the Kultur-Lige edition issued in Warsaw in 1922. This is likely a pirated out-of-copyright edition issued for use within the Yiddish school system in Mexico and never intended for wider distribution - hence its scarcity.     El (Eliezer Lazar Markovich) Lissitzky (1890-1941) was a Jewish-Russian artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect, and one of the most prominent members of the Russian Avant-Garde art movement. Lissitzky’s Avant-Garde Expressionist and Cubo-Futuristic illustrations for this tale are full of poetic fantasy and playfulness, creating a sublimely panoramic and yet whimsical picture of life in the Jewish Shtetl of the early 20th century.     For the Warsaw first edition of Yingel Tsingel Khvat, see Kestenbaum Sale 15, Lot 509.