Survivor from a Dead Age: The Memoirs of Louis Lozowick

Louis Lozowick (1892-1973) fled the pogroms of the Ukraine in 1906 and arrived in America a young boy of fourteen, bringing with him the Jewish influences of his shtetl upbringing and the artistic training of the Kiev Art School. These memoirs, worked on from 1945 until his death, recall two periods that had a profound effect on Lozowick's development as an artist: a tumultuous era of pogroms and revolution (1892-1906), and a pilgrimage to seek culture in the capitals of Europe (1920-1923). Rounding out the life are two transitional sections written by the editor. Leaving the poverty and chaos of the Ukraine behind him, Lozowick led a relatively uneventful life in America, graduating from Ohio State, serving a year in the army, and traveling across the country. Paris, Berlin and Moscow were to be his training ground, where cafe life brought him into contact with Chagall, Picasso, Rodchenko, Kafka, Malevich and others. A final chapter written by Marquardt, associate professor of art history at Marist College, offers a useful examination of Lozowick's career as an artist, lecturer, and writer between 1924 and 1945. The problem is this is really a pastiche more than a memoir. It is only when read in its entirety, supported by the prologue, foreword, introduction, transitional sections, ""statements of art,"" and chronology, that readers will be able to formulate a well-balanced impression of who this man was and how his experiences informed and were revealed in his theory and art. (Mar.)