Poster with captioned cartoons for the play Abie's Irish Rose
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 29.250 inches (74.295 cm) | Width: 18.500 inches (46.99 cm)
Creator(s)
- Peter Ehrenthal (Compiler)
- Fred Spurgin (Cartoonist)
Biographical History
The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Scope and Content
Poster by Fred Spurgin for the hit Broadway play, Abie's Irish Rose, by Anne Nichols, which opened in 1922. It is about a young couple, an Irish American woman and a Jewish man, who marry despite the objections of their families. This poster is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Offset lithograph poster in green and black ink on paper with the title in English text in decorated fonts at the top and center, with 7 captioned cartoons depicting scenes from a play in 3 rows of 2, and 1 in the bottom center. In the top row: left, a young fashionably dressed woman, Rose, holds the hand of a young man, Abie, as he embraces a man in a yarmulke, his father; right, a short man walks away from a matron in a fur stole, Rose's parents. In the center: left, Abie's father, with a Rabbi, holds a pocket watch and says time as Abie and Rose kiss; right, the short man, now in tuxedo and top hat, sits on a sofa and hides behind his wife, in a feathered headdress, as a man with thinning hair angrily confronts them. In the bottom row: left, the short, bearded man in top hat and tuxedo escorts Rose, in a wedding dress, followed by a young girl holding the bride's train, and the tall overdressed matron with feathered fan and headdress; right, a priest stands between Abie’s father and the man with thinning hair, who holds a baby. In the center, the bearded man, in a plaid coat, holds a cane and stands beside his wife, now in a feathered hat. The artis's name, Fred Spurgin, is printed in the lower left. The poster has a narrow green border and is adhered to slightly larger linen backing.
Subjects
- Jews--United States--Ethnic relations--Pictorial works.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Jews in art.
- Jews in popular culture.
- Stereotypes (Social psychology) in art.
- Jews--United States--Pictorial works.
Genre
- Object
- Posters