Subject Guide: Architecture and Design

Heinz and Luba B. Condell papers (YIVO RG 504)

Heinz Condell was an artist and a stage and costume designer. One of the founders of the Jewish Kultur Bund Teater in Berlin, as well as a designer for the New York City Opera, Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theater and ARTEF (Arbeter Teater Farband) Company in New York. Lived in Germany and the U.S..Collection includes the papers relating to H. Condell's theatrical career in Germany and in the U.S. Correspondence relating to work in the theater. Personal documents. Clippings of reviews and notices relating to productions of the Kultur Bund Teater in Berlin, 1930s. Clippings include reproductions of artwork. Photographs of stage sets and designs. Original designs, including ink and paint on boards, for *Bronx Express* by Ossip Dymow and *Nathan the Wise* by Gerhard Lessing. 

Leib Kadison papers (YIVO RG 1100)

Kadison was a set designer, actor, and director in the Yiddish theater. He founded the Vilna Troupe in 1915. Born in Kaunas, Lithuania. The papers relate to Kadison's theatrical career and personal life. Art works: original stage designs for the Yiddish theater; drawings of stage characters; portraits of the Kadison family; miscellaneous drawings. Photographs of the Vilna Troupe including scenes of performances. Individual and group photographs of troupe members, including photographs of Luba Kadison and Joseph Buloff. Photographs of Leib Kadison and family. Programs of Vilna Troupe productions. Clippings, theater posters.

Leo Kerz Collection (LBI AR 25445) [Digitized]

Leo Kerz (1912-1976) was born in Berlin, Germany, where he began his career as a stage designer. He escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, living in the Netherlands, in the United Kingdom and in South Africa, before immigrating to the US in 1941, where he became an acclaimed scenic and lighting designer on Broadway. Collection includes postcards showing stage designs by Leo Kerz and typescripts (copies) of stage plays in English translation by Bert Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Eugene Ionosco, Georg Kaiser, Leonard Lesley, and Martin Walser, translated and/or adapted by Leo Kerz; 1959-1970. Note: All original materials are kept in the Harvard Theatre Collection at the Houghton Library.

Moi Solotaroff Papers (YIVO RG 1504)

Solotaroff was born in Tshigirin, Russia, in 1892 and studied art in New York and Paris. He was the principal stage and costume designer for the Artef theater in 1928-1939. He was also a painter and had numerous exhibits in the United States and abroad. Also designed stage sets and costumes for many other performances up until his death. Collection contains approximately one hundred stage and costume designs, mostly for Artef. These are done in watercolor on paper. There are oil paintings, a scrapbook of program announcements and reviews. There are also photographs of Artef performances.

Sholem Perlmutter papers (YIVO RG 289)

The collection consists of a wide variety of Yiddish theater materials gathered by Perlmutter, and includes Perlmutter's personal papers. Collection includes various materials including sheet music, compositions, articles, photographs of actors and performances, art works, photographs and drawings of set designs and costume designs as well as drawings in ink, crayon, pencil, watercolors, of general subjects and theater posters from various countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Rumania, the U.S. Programs and playbills.

Wolfgang Roth collection (LBI AR 6293) [Digitized]

Wolfgang Roth was born in 1910 in Berlin. In the 1930s he was active in the cabaret scene and worked with Erwin Piscator and Berthold Brecht, among others, as a set designer. In the mid-thirties he moved to Vienna and from there to Switzerland. Eventually he emigrated to New York where he continued to work in the field of set design including for productions on Broadway and Metropolitan and New York City opera houses. The collection is primarily made up of photographs from circa 1930s-1950s of family, friends, and colleagues of the set designer Wolfgang Roth.

Yiddish Theater Photographs (RG 119)

Photographs of theater productions, arranged by country. Included are: Austria, Brazil, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, England, Egypt, Germany, Italy, Israel, Poland, Rumania, Soviet Union, United States. There are also some photographs of Yiddish film productions. Photographs of theatrical personalities, such as actors, directors, producers, arranged by name of individual.

Max Reinhardt and his theatre. / Edited by Oliver M. Sayler, translated by Mariele S. Gudernatsch and others. New York: Brentano's, 1926.

On stage: the art of Léon Bakst, theatre design and other works / Eva Sznajderman. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1992.

Theatre in revolution : Russian avant-garde stage design, 1913-1935 / Nancy Van Norman Baer, et al. New York: Thames and Hudson, San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1991.

The stage-design of Perez' bay nakht oyfn altn mark / Chone Shmeruk. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967.

The theatre art of Boris Aronson / Frank Rich with Lisa Aronson. New York: Knopf, 1987.