The 2018 publication Olʹha Rapaĭ-Markish arrived in Cambridge later that same year but I only recently managed to take a proper look.  Olʹha Rapaĭ-Markish (also known as Olʹha Rapaĭ or the anglicised Olha/Olga Rapay), 1929-2012, was a Ukrainian artist most known for her ceramics, large and small, and this book explores her often tragic life and her delightful work.  [Note that her father, Peret︠s︡/Peretz Markish, the major Yiddish writer who was shot in Moscow in 1952 during the Night of the Murdered Poets, features in the book, and that we have other books by/about him here.]

It’s impossible to do justice to the book’s reproductions of the artist’s work with only a phone camera, but hopefully the images here give some kind of tempting idea.  Rapaĭ-Markish’s work ranged from the large-scale (featuring in and on several buildings in Kyïv) but this book’s reproductions focus more on her small-scale work, especially the wonderful figurines she produced, full of life and joy – and cats (the book includes a photo of the artist with her cat muse).  This is our only book about Rapaĭ-Markish’s work, and definitely worth calling up to consult in the UL.

Mel Bach