Habima : Henry Ripszam

Ripszam's drawings of the celebrated Habima company, born 1917 in revolutionary Moscow, who toured Europe and the US in the late 1920s and early 1930s with their Hebrew-language productions, were hidden for decades in a family vault.

His perceptive characterisations compare and contrast with period studies by the sisters Nini and Carry Hess, Frankfurt-based art photographers,.

These come from the archives of the Israeli Center for the Documentation of the Performing Arts, Tel Aviv University, whose Chair, Dr Olga Levitan, describes Ripszam's role in interpreting Habima at a crucial moment of the company's progress..

The characters observed are from The Dybbuk, The Golem and David's Crown.