Hermann Struck (1876-1944), born Chaim Aaron ben David in Germany, is remembered as a master etcher, lithographer and early Zionist. He trained for five years at the Berlin Academy and later wrote the standard text Die Kunst des Radierens (The Art of Etching) in 1908, while also mentoring such notables as Marc Chagall and Lesser Ury.
Struck is renowned for his landscapes of the Jewish homeland and small towns in Europe, as well as portraits of such figures as Einstein, Freud, Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde. He had four pieces on display at the Fifth Zionist Congress' art exhibit and also helped establish Mizrachi (“spiritual center”), the religious Zionist movement. Struck was an Orthodox Jew, yet held the enlightened view that culture and religion could thrive cooperatively in the Land of Israel. This notion came to fruition upon his immigration to Haifa, where he created an artistic community and participated in the development of the Tel Aviv Museum and Bezalel art school in Jerusalem.
The majority of his works on display are signed original lithographs that accompanied Arnold Zweig’s commentary in Das Ostjüdische Antlitz (The Face of East European Jewry) [1920]. For Struck, these Jews embodied the spirit of the Diaspora, which was inseparable from his vision for the Land of Israel’s future. Although Struck was hailed as the “Artistic Soul of Israel,” his creative expression achieved wide appeal throughout both Europe and America
