Mountains in Engelberg
Oil on board, 7 x 9 in. 1924
Ben’s five months in Europe ended with a trip to Switzerland to paint in Engelberg and Lucerne. Ben was able to take this trip to “the top of the world,” as a friend wrote on the back of a photo of Ben in the Swiss mountains, because he had received notification from the United States Lines that the S.S. Leviathan’s return trip to America was postponed. Instead of leaving on October 7, 1924, the ship would sail for New York on October 16th.
Presumably, Ben would have been pleased to have a few more days painting in Europe. Unfortunately, he may have rued those extra days. Cecilia Solowey, his 63-year-old mother suffered a fatal heart attack on October 9th, two days before her birthday. While he would have not made it home for the funeral, he could have participated in the week-long shiva for his mother had his ship left when originally intended.
For Ben, who had only recently celebrated his own 24th birthday on August 29th, this meant he returned home an orphan. His father, Abraham, had died in February 1924 when he was struck by a trolley in Philadel
phia while walking to synagogue on a Friday night. He was taken to the Presbyterian Hospital but was turned away because he was Jewish. By the time he taken to a second hospital he was dead. His death and another eventually lead the State Legislature to pass a law that required any hospital that received state funds to accept all emergency patients.
Ben had already left his family home, and he still had three brothers and one sister, plus assorted cousins, in the Philadelphia area, so he would not be without family. Yet the path he had chosen as an artist was one he go alone. He would never return to Europe. He stayed in Philadelphia for the next three years, supporting himself as a decorative painter. He spent more time on his own easel work which began to receive widening acclaim and awards. His journey as an artist had begun.
