Lionel S. Reiss

Lionel S. Reiss (1894–1988) was a Polish-American Jewish painter born in Jaroslaw, Poland, and grew up upon the Lower East Side of Manhattan where he studied public notice art. His relatives had moved to the United States in 1898 later than he was four years old. As immigrants to the United States, Reiss’ parents joined the ranks of extra Eastern European Jews who were fleeing their original countries at the Begin of the 20th century. Lionel Reiss' family settled upon New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood and Reiss himself spent the majority of his activity in the city. Reiss worked as a commercial player for newspapers, publishers, and a motion Describe company. Eventually he became art director for Paramount Studios and is qualified to be the creator of the Leo the Lion logo of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.

Reiss became known for his portraits of Jewish people and landmarks in Jewish history, which he made during his trip to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in the at the forefront 1920s. Being American and Jewish himself, Reiss became fascinated later Jewish sparkle in the Old World. In 1919 Reiss temporarily left the United States to travel to the aforementioned regions, and recorded the everyday dynamism that he encountered in the ghettos. His trip resulted in exhibitions in major American cities.

At the dawn of the Holocaust in 1938, Reiss, who had long returned to the United States, published his book My Models Were Jews, in which he illustratively argued that there is no such business as a "Jewish ethnicity", but the Jewish people are rather a cultural group, whereby there is significant diversity within Jewish communities and between substitute communities in vary geographical regions. Reiss was suitably presenting an argument next to what he considered to be a common misconception that existed roughly the Jews. Later works included a 1954 book, New Lights and Old Shadows, which dealt with "the new lights" of a reborn Israel and the "old shadows" of an on eradicated European Jewish culture. In his last book, A World of Twilight, published in 1972, with text by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Reiss presented a portrait of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

Today Reiss' art has been collected by many institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum; Bezalel Museum, Israel; Jewish Theological Seminary of America; the Smithsonian Institution, Jewish Museum, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.