Collection of Photographs by Avraham Soskin – Palestine, First Decades of the 20th Century

Collection of Photographs by Avraham Soskin – Palestine, First Decades of the 20th Century
30 photographs by photographer Avraham Soskin. Palestine, [first decades of the 20th century].
1-16. Sixteen photographs reflecting the different facets of Jewish settlement and activity in Palestine during the first decades of the 20th century: laborers in an orchard, a Purim party at a kindergarten in Tel Aviv, Lord Balfour and his entourage in Tel Aviv [1925], swamp drainage in the Jezreel Valley, tobacco farming at Ben Shemen, work on a dairy farm in a Jewish settlement (apparently Beit Alpha), a plantation and a beehive in Kibbutz Geva, the Roaring Lion monument at Tel Hai and more.
17-30. Fourteen portraits of women, men and children photographed in a studio. Most are divided on verso to be used as postcards, with dedications on verso of some. One of the photographs is signed by the subject ("Prof. A Schor").
26 of the photographs are stamped (most with embossed stamps. Others are stamped on verso. Some have printed labels on the cards on which they are mounted). Three of the photographs are stamped on verso with the stamp of the "Agricultural Museum of the Zionist Organization, Jerusalem" (the museum operated in Jerusalem in the years 1920-1927). In some cases, details were added by hand in the negative or on the photographs.
Avraham Soskin (1881-1963) was born in Russia and immigrated to Palestine in 1905. He settled in the German colony in Jaffa and opened the "Photographia Progress" photography studio together with G. Bruck. In 1914 Soskin moved to 24 Herzl St., where the second floor served as both a photography studio and a home for his family and himself; at this studio, called "Photographia A. Soskin", he worked for 19 years, until 1933 (the year the studio was closed). Soskin, known as the "Photographer of Tel Aviv", was among the most important photographers active in Palestine during the Yishuv period. He is unique in the abundance of photographs he took documenting the first two decades of the first Hebrew city.
30 photographs. Size and condition vary.
Provenance: Rimon Family Collection.