Molayem ART Magazine International Art Magazine
Photograph: Richard J Scheuer
Richard J Scheuer’s previously unseen photographs from 1934 depict ordinary people going about their daily lives despite the growing threat of a second world war
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Street Scene, Warsaw, Poland
This is Nalewki Street, the commercial centre of the Warsaw Jewish Quarter. Six years after Richard Scheuer’s visit, it became part of the Warsaw Ghetto and was destroyed when the Nazis razed the Ghetto in 1943. Street Visions: Europe, 1934 – Photographs by Richard J Scheuer is on view at Dr Bernard Heller Museum, HUC-JIR, New York until 15 December 2022. All Photographs: Richard J Scheuer Archive
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Livery Driver, Warsaw, Poland
Scheuer (1917-2008) had just turned 17 when he took an eight-week tour of Europe in the summer of 1934. He travelled the continent, making stops in France, Yugoslavia and the cities of Budapest, Warsaw and Moscow. Co-curator Jonathan Scheuer writes about his father’s photographs: ‘The boldness of this young man between his junior and senior years of high school may come as a surprise to those who remember the scholarly, reserved gentleman of his maturity. Those who never met him will discover a photographer who faced the world with empathy and courage’
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Woman with Veil, Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
In 2018, Charles Seton, a photo restoration specialist and family friend, digitised and restored the photographs. Scheuer’s sons and Seton began identifying locations, reconstructing the chronology of the trip, sequencing the rolls of film, and researching other questions that these photographs pose. Here, a woman smiles back at the photographer behind her veil. She wears lipstick and carries an elegant handbag. The curators suspect that the woman is one of Scheuer’s travelling companions, who may have put on the hijab in order to enter the mosque
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Cattle Market (Races Étrangères), Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France
The show was co-curated by Scheuer’s sons Jonathan and Dan. They said: ‘Our father’s photographs of shopkeepers and street denizens in Yugoslavia, Poland and other odd corners of Europe in 1934 are astonishing for their intricacy and their direct, joyous engagement with their subjects’
Man in Dalmatian Costume, Yugoslavia
Richard’s subjects ranged from Basque markets in southwest France to artisan bazaars in Yugoslavia and outdoor baths in Budapest. This dapper gentleman appears to be a vendor of brushes, combs and mirrors
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Men in Front of Clothing Store, Warsaw, Poland
Warsaw’s lively Jewish quarter, where members of the community appeared generally relaxed and unconstrained, five years before the Nazi invasion of Poland. The painted figures on the shutters echo the two standing men. A symphony of rectangles fills the tightly organised frame. Here we have the full cycle of life: the child in the stroller, the two middle-aged men conversing amiably, one engaging the child, and an elderly man with a cane walking out of the frame. The cut-off figures on the right and left sides of this image add to its power
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Girls’ Kazoo Band, Moscow, USSR
A uniformed brass player leads the band. In the USSR Scheuer captured a street parade, a girls’ kazoo band and theatrical productions including the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre and the Moscow Children’s Theatre
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Sholem Aleichem’s ‘The Jackpot’, Moscow State Yiddish Theater
Sholom Aleichem’s 1916 Yiddish comedy Dos Groyse Gevins is also translated as The $200,000. This play follows a poor tailor who wins a lottery
Cheesemonger, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France
Scheuer was interested not only in how the local people look, but in what they did. He was drawn to shopkeepers and artisans at work. Here a cheesemonger in the French Basque region arranges her wares
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Outdoor Market, Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia
Scheuer’s 1934 negatives were developed shortly after his return to the US, but he never had them enlarged. In the 1990s, Dan Scheuer saw contact strips when his father was cleaning out the closet. He asked for permission to print some, but for some unknown reason, Richard was reluctant
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Shoemaker, Mostar, Yugoslavia
Lengths of rawhide used in shoemaking dangle over a pair of empty shoes on the left, making a surrealistic stand-in for a human figure. On the right, strands of hide hanging in a dark doorway and a ghostly highlight complete the eerie framing of the shoemaker and his sleepy friend
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Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque, Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
Men socialise at the ritual foot-washing fountain outside a mosque in Sarajevo. The out-of-focus curtain on the left edge may indicate that the photo was taken through a bus window
Cattle Market (Races Étrangères), Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France
The relaxed but confident cattleman in the centre looks directly at the photographer. The gesture of his left arm sets off an undulating wave pattern, extending through the horns of the steers, and is set against the stark black rectangular openings of the building in the rear
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Dog Jumping Over Girl, France
The young girl in the striped dress is one of Scheuer’s travelling companions. She and her family have not yet been identified
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Szechenyi Baths, Budapest, Hungary
Opened in 1913, the Szechenyi Thermal Baths looks today much as it did in 1934
