“I am a Specialist in Displacement”: A Chapter in Yosl Bergner’s Biography, 1942-1950

• In Event: Visions of Yiddish: Toward a History of Modernist Yiddish Literature and Art

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger project that seeks to construct an intellectual biography of the painter Yosl Bergner (1920-2017). In 1949, during a yearlong stay in Montreal, Bergner published a cycle of 59 of illustrations to accompany I.L Peretz’ folktales. I will show how the Peretz Album represents a transition in Bergner’s career. First, I will argue, Bergner’s visual interpretation of Peretz’s tales is one of the most developed expressions of his sensibilities as an Australian artist, and a prominent member of the Contemporary Art Social of Melbourne. At the same time, I will demonstrate, it was also Bergner’s first endeavor to partake in the cultural renewal in the Yiddish world, and to develop a new figural language that would correspond to the postwar cultural conditions.

During the years 1941-1942, Bergner, a soldier in the Australian army, was stationed in Tocumwal, Northern Victoria, where he developed personal relationship with a local community of Aborigines. According to his testimony, he spent his evenings listening to their stories, and contributing his own stories - tales he translated from a volume of Y.L. Peretz. As a member of the Melbourne social realist movement, Bergner published a manifesto calling for “a human, democratic art with its roots in the life and struggles of ordinary people.” During his stay in Tocumwal, Bergner painted two series of drawings, very close to each other in their themes and visual language. The first - portraits of the Aborigines community, which he presented in the 1942 Anti-Fascist Exhibition in Melbourne, to great acclaim. The second – his interpretation of Peretz’s tales, which were first presented in Montreal in 1949. On the basis of Bergner’s letters, I will reflect on the relationship between the two series, and reflect on what they reveal about Bergner’s self-understanding as a Jewish artist and as a Yiddish activist in the wake of the Second World War.

Author

• Ofer Dynes, McGill University