A Collage of Customs [Paperback]

In A Collage of Customs, Mark Podwal's imaginative and inventive interpretations of woodcuts from a 16th-century Sefer Minhagim (Book of Customs) allow readers of this volume to see these historic images in a new light. Podwal brings humor and whimsy to religious objects and practices, while at the same time delivering profound and nuanced commentary on Jewish customs and history, both through his art, and through his insightful accompanying text. The book appears in concert with an exhibition of Podwal's renderings at the Cincinnati Skirball Museum.In A Collage of Customs, Mark Podwal's imaginative and inventive interpretations of woodcuts from a 16th-century Sefer Minhagim (Book of Customs) allow us to see these historic images in a new light. Podwal brings humour and whimsy to religious objects and practices and delivers a nuanced commentary on Jewish customs and history.Mark Podwal has written and illustrated more than a dozen books, and has illustrated more than two dozen works by such authors as Elie Wiesel, Heinrich Heine, Harold Bloom, and Francine Prose. His art is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Prague's National Gallery, the Bodleian Library, and Jewish museums in Berlin, Vienna, Prague, and New York, among other venues. Honors he has received include being named Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture; the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award from the Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Gratias Agit Prize from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I call Podwal the Max Ernst of Judaic vintage visual narrative. Podwal (an M.D. during the day who transforms into a pictorial storyteller by night) injects his work with surrealist aesthetic and coy bite by reimagining vintage illumination. . . . While Ernst leaned toward eroticism and mystery, Podwal brings humor and whimsy to religious rituals, objects and practices. At the same time, in this book he delivlóØ