In Fragile Images: Jews and Art in Yugoslavia, 1918-1945, Mirjam Rajner traces the lives and creativity of seven artists of Jewish origin. The artists - Moša Pijade, Daniel Kabiljo, Adolf Weiller, Bora Baruh, Daniel Ozmo, Ivan Rein and Johanna Lutzer - were characterized by multiple and changeable identities: nationalist and universalist, Zionist and Sephardic, communist and cosmopolitan. These fluctuating identities found expression in their art, as did their wartime fate as refugees, camp inmates, partisans and survivors. A wealth of newly-discovered images, diaries and letters highlight this little-known aspect of Jewish life and art in Yugoslavia, illuminating a turbulent era that included integration into a newly-founded country, the catastrophe of the Holocaust, and renewal in its aftermath.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments  xi List of Illustrations Note on Personal Names Introduction Part 1: In Search of an Identity: Sephardic, Zionist, Yugoslav Introduction to Part 1 1 From Dorćol to Paris and Back: Moša Pijade’s Self-Portraits  1 Coming of Age in Belgrade  2 Fin-de-siècle Munich  3 The Bohemian Paris  4 Pijade’s Self-Portraits: In Search of an Identity 2 Sarajevo’s Multiculturalism: Daniel Kabiljo’s Sephardic Types  1 Between East and West  2 Bosnian Artist or Yugoslav Zionist?  3 Choosing Sides  4 Kabiljo’s Sephardic Types 3 A Croatian Zionist: Adolf Weiller between the East European Shtetl and the Lure of Nature  1 Becoming a “Jewish Artist”  2 The Lure of Nature Part 2: From Avant-Garde to Political Activism Introduction to Part 2 4 Bora Baruh’s Refugees  1 “Four Mahaneh Portraits”  2 The Early Works  3 Paris: A Painter and a Revolutionary  4 Painting Refugees  5 Two Directions: The “Art for Art’s Sake” and the Socially Engaged Art 5 Ivan Rein’s Paris: From the Quartier Latin to Camp Vernet  1 Growing Up in an Affluent and Acculturated Jewish-Catholic Family  2 The Croatian School of Painting  3 Rein’s Paris  4 Social Awareness and Political Protest  5 Letters to Cuca: On Being Jewish, Yugoslav, and Universal on the Eve of WWII 6 The Ethnic and Universal Avante-Garde: Daniel Ozmo’s Linocuts  1 A Bosnian Sephardic Artist in Belgrade  2 Discussing “Jewish Art” in the 1930’s: Between Racial Traits and Human Values  3 Social Content and Expressionist Form  4 Sarajevo’s Avant-Garde: Collegium Artisticum Part 3: “We Artists Have to Paint”: Art Created during the War and the Holocaust Introduction to Part 3 7 Bora Baruh in Occupied Belgrade: Images of Jewish and Christian Mourning  1 Bombing of Belgrade and Persecution of the Jews  2 Painting Portraits  3 Refugees on Ruins 8 Art in Jasenovac: Daniel Ozmo and the Artists of the Ceramic Workshop  1 The Destruction of Sarajevo’s Jewish Community and Daniel Ozmo’s Arrest  2 The Jasenovac Camp and the Ceramic Workshop  3 Ozmo’s Depictions of Forced Labor  4 Slavko Bril  5 Portraits and Landscapes  6 Ozmo’s End 9 Refugee and Artist: Ivan Rein, Johanna Lutzer, and Jewish Cultural Life in Kraljevica  1 Escaping to the Adriatic Coast  2 Being a Refugee in Kraljevica  3 Ivan Rein’s Refugee Art  4 The Kraljevica—Porto Re Camp  5 Ivan Rein’s Drawings Created in the Kraljevica Camp  6 Johanna Lutzer: A Jewish Artist from Vienna 10 The Rab Island Camp: From Internment to Freedom Part 4: Producing Art for Partisans: Creativity between Ideology and Survival Introduction to Part 4 11 Bora Baruh as a Partisan, 1941–1942 12 Johanna Lutzer: Jewish Refugees with the Partisans in Croatia 13 Postscript: Jewish Artists as National Heroes, Victims of Fascism, and Holocaust Survivors Conclusion Bibliography Index