Jewish Art and Yiddish Art History: Leo Koenig's Renesans

Through the 1920 Yiddish little magazine Renesans, Leo Koenig aimed to articulate a specifically Jewish art. His objective was to foster the conditions of its creation, to identify the ways in which it was being created, and to interpret its history. Renesans crystallized a set of priorities for the Jewish artistic present, the criteria for success, and a projected future. Koenig has been credited as the first art critic in Yiddish; we propose that Koenig's combined work as editor, author, and theorist should also be understood as a key example of Yiddish art history.

Our introduction of the term Yiddish art history is intended to draw attention to the lively theorization of Jewish art in Yiddish and as part of Yiddishist and cultural nationalist projects in the Eastern European Jewish diaspora. Koenig's work in Renesans is not just a suitable object of study for this field; we argue that Koenig was himself developing Yiddish art history, attempting a fusion of discourse and artwork with the aim of creating a Jewish national consciousness.

Koenig's biography is explored as a means of understanding the ideas and art movements that would influence Renesans. The contents of the journal are then analyzed to show how Koenig aimed to curate and define his conception of Jewish art. This attempt is contextualized with its local reception in the London Yiddish press, and its limitations are explored in relation to Koenig's theoretical writing itself.