Si Lewen's Parade An Artist's Odyssey

by Lewen, Si; Spiegelman, Art

• ISBN13: 9781419721618
• ISBN10: 1419721615
• Edition: Boxed
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-10-04
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Summary

A pioneering, wordless graphic novel detailing the horrors of war in the 20th Century, featuring an overview of the artist’s career.

Si Lewen’s Parade is a timeless story told in a language that knows no country—a wordless epic that, despite its muteness, is more powerful than the written or the spoken word. First published in 1957, The Parade is a lost classic, newly discovered, remastered, and presented by Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Maus.

The Parade is a celebration of art and the story of recurring war as Si Lewen experienced it over the past 90 years, watching the joyful parades that marked the end of World War I lead into the death marches of World War II and the Korean War. As The Parade unfolds, the reader is taken on an unforgettable journey of sequential images.

“An eloquent and vigorous protest against war’s horror and futility.” —New York Times, from an exhibition review of The Parade, 1953

“Nothing can equal the psychological effect of real art. . . . Our time needs you and your work!” —Albert Einstein, from a letter to Si Lewen, 1951

“The Parade is a powerfully moving free-jazz dirge of a book that depicts mankind’s recurring war fever. It remains sadly urgent and relevant today.” —Art Spiegelman, from his introduction

“A compelling testament to Lewen’s gifts for stirring our souls with the silent grace of painted panel after panel after panel. As narrative, it is music by which to mourn Man’s fate.” —The Washington Post

Author Biography

Si Lewen was born in Lublin, Poland, on November 8, 1918. During World War II he served in the US Army as one of the Ritchie Boys (German-speaking Special Ops) from the invasion of Normandy to the liberation of Buchenwald. He resumed his career as a painter after the war. Lewen lives in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. Si Lewen passed away at the Foulkways retirement home in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, on July 25, 2016. A few days before his death, Art Spiegelman presented him with a finished copy of Si Lewen’s Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey. Lewen’s daughter Nina Kardon said, “Seeing the book brought him not only happiness, but a sense of closure to his life.” The Whitney Museum of American Art acquired several pieces of his art from Si Lewen's Parade in 2017. Art Spiegelman is an American comics writer, artist, and editor best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel memoir, Maus.