The B'nai B'rith magazine · 1927-06-01 · 9 (6.1927) · p. Seite 379

LOUIS LOZOWICK 379 Beb.Uk Louis Lozowick- New York i *r Pittsburgh-. Lou Lozowickis festations of the vibrant rush and chaos in terms of which we usually conceive of the American scene. Lozowick eliminates what to him is the superfluous froth of electric signs and traffic, and gives us the rhythm and strength of the towering buildings, the huge chimneys of blast-furnaces, the rising steel structures, the endless railroad yards, and the massiveness of grain-elevators. These elements he coordinates into a forceful unit that is America. Lozowick applies the freshness and strength of his intellect to his experiments that aim to weld art and industry, wherever ornament is to be found. All ornament, from the theme of wall-paper to the designs of embroidery, Lozowick points out, is dependent upon motifs that belong to the past and that no longer play a very important role in our lives. The hastiest of examinations will disclose that all modern ornaments are drawn from the conventionalized embellishments of the past—primitive man's birds, the Egyptian lotus and scarab, Indian crocodiles, and the like. They were an expression of the people who created them and were of a definite significance in their lives. If our art and life are to be more coherent, Lozowick argues, the ornaments of today should be represented by conventionalized parts of machinery; for it is the machine that plays the most important part in our lives, while the Greek honeysuckle, the Egyptian scarab, and the Indian crocodiles are foreign to us. To prove that the machine and its parts can be conventionalized into artistic units, Lozowick worked out a series of machine parts in the form of ornaments. Figures Two and Three represent Lozowick's conventionalized machine-ornaments. In Figure One they are applied in a setting for a fashion show held in New York City, in 1926. The machine-ornament, if developed, can be introduced into designs of furniture, wall-paper, textiles, embroidery, linoleum, tiles, and the various other objects that we use daily. Thus the significance of Lozowick's experiments can readily be grasped. There can be no doubt but that his machine-ornaments sooner or later will be adopted by various manufacturers and eventually effect a greater co-ordination between modern art and modern industry. Lozowick is the author of "Modern Russian Art." He is now writing a book on "The History of Modern Art," and another volume on contemporary art for a German publisher. Though the Jewish theme rarely finds expression on Lozowick's canvases, he is intensely interested in Jewish art and artists. He has written about them in "The Menorah Journal" of which he is art editor.