Shtetl Songs

The artist’s 15-piece special art collection Shtetl Stories includes two original works, exclusive and specially produced authored original prints and specially designed art panel, is based on Michael Rogatchi’s works on paper in different techniques, and is spanding from 2010 through 2024. The main theme of the collection is Yiddish world and the artist’s living artistic reminiscence of it. The collection has been created in memory and as a homage to the outstanding writer Grigory Kanovich ( 1929 – 2023) who was a close friend of the Rogatchi family for many decades. The collection has been donated by the artist and The Rogatchi Foundation to the Grigory Kanovich Public Library in Jonava , Lithuania, the writer’s native place, where it has become the part of its Permanent Art Collection. The inaugural exhibition of the collection in September 2024 was part of the official program of the European Days of Jewish Culture in 2024. From 2025, the collection is expected to tour many places in Lithuania in a special Living Memory project conducted together by the Grigory Kanovich Public Library in Jonava, the Lithuanian national cultural institutions and The Rogatchi Foundation.

”  And today, what this rare artist, Michael Rogatchi, transmits to us through his art of memory and history, through the heritage received from the Jews of Lithuania but also the heritage transmitted by Grigory Kanovich, by Elie Wiesel and Leonard Cohen, who were his friends, is to shine beyond the possible. These works transmit  love and communion between those living,  and the obligation given to us to be a burning heart to perceive the tears of the deceased ones and to create songs of them” – Dr Michael de Saint-Cheron, author of “Dancing Against Ashes” essay for the Shtetl Stories and Memories Catalogue ( 2024).

The essay in full can be read here.

Michael Rogatchi’s Introduction to his Shtetl Stories series can be read here.