Illuminated by Arthur Szyk’s Art : Exhibit: Serendipity leads five O.C. friends to collect the works and papers of the Polish illustrator, whose ‘U.N. Series’ is on view in Placentia.

Browsing in a tiny stamp shop in Orange in 1988, George Gooche of Placentia spotted a splash of color in an otherwise dusty corner. He paid a negligible sum for six lithographic prints and took them home to his hobby room.

Today, Gooche and four other local senior citizens own the originals of those and other works by Polish manuscript illuminator Arthur Szyk, whose “United Nations Series” is on display through Thursday at the Placentia Library.

They also own more than 120,000 prints as well as Szyk’s personal papers and the unpublished memoirs of his wife, Julia.

“At first, finding out about the artist was a matter of curiosity,” explained Gooche, 66, who coordinated the display. “Then selling his work became something interesting to do for retirement. Now learning about Szyk is my life work.”

Szyk, as Gooche would soon learn, single-handedly revived the art of manuscript illumination, aided the Allied war effort during World War II and illustrated what are arguably some of the most beautiful volumes published in this century, many of a religious nature.

“People are always surprised that I would be so interested in such a profoundly Jewish artist,” Gooche said. “I wonder why. This was a man who could look death in the face and not be concerned.”

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Szyk’s secular “United Nations Series” honors the founding countries of the organization. Brilliantly colored, highly ornate heliochrome lithographs combine scenes, portraits and symbols to create a visual history of countries including the United States, China, the former Soviet Union and Israel, which at the time Szyk was working had only recently been established.

The Placentia display coincides with an exhibition of Szyk’s “Washington and His Times” series about the Revolutionary War, also through Thursday, at Cleveland’s historic Temple Tifereth Israel. (Polish ruler Ignacy Moscicki made a gift to President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the originals of that series.) The “U.N. Series” will join at least 100 other Szyk originals at an exhibition next fall at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

Fittingly in light of the current exhibition, it was Gooche’s research at the Placentia Library after finding those first six prints that led him to a “lost treasure” of Szyk work.

Gooche initially unearthed an article about Szyk (1894-1951, pronounced shick ) in “Current Biography, 1946,” but could find no further information until he contacted Rita Chemers of Chemers Gallery in Tustin. She knew of Szyk’s work and ventured that the prints were worth substantially more than he’d paid. Continuing his library search, Gooche discovered prominent obituaries in the New York Times and Time magazine.

Gooche’s investigation also turned up publisher Kasimir Bileski of Winnipeg. According to Gooche, the Canadian entrepreneur had commissioned the prints he had found in Orange as cover pages for an international stamp album. Szyk, however, completed only nine of 60 countries in the series before he died. The project unfinished, Bileski packed and stored the artwork in a New York warehouse, where it remained for nearly half a century.

“Bileski was still alive,” Gooche recalled. “I contacted him, and we spoke on the phone numerous times. One day, he mentioned (the stored works and said,) ‘When I die I won’t have any use for them--Would you like them?’ He named a very reasonable price, and said, ‘I’ll ship them as you can pay for them.’ ”

Under the banner of Historic Art Inc., the five friends pooled their resources.

“Bileski had never visited the warehouse,” Gooche said. “The first 25% we received was much greater, in both quality and quantity, than he, or we, had ever imagined.” In its entirety, the cache included not only many thousands of reproductions Bileski believed to be there, but also a dozen originals and a number of books he was unaware of.

Gooche located Szyk’s daughter, Alexandra Braciejowski, by deducing, correctly, that she may have shortened her name: Alice Bracie was then living in New York.

“I asked her if she had anything of her father’s she would sell,” Gooche related. “I thought, maybe one painting. We bought 22,000 items, including 10 originals.”

The more Gooche saw of Szyk’s output, the greater became his zeal. He doubled his research and now knows as much about Szyk as anybody: He’s often called upon to determine authenticity of Szyk works, produces a monthly Arthur Szyk Society newsletter and is writing a book about the artist.

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Szyk left Poland to study art in Paris at 15; he traveled the Middle East to learn the art of illumination, in which manuscripts are decorated with pictorial elements. He was a decorated soldier in Poland’s battle against the Germans in World War I, and his loathing of tyranny was later reflected in stylized cartoons and caricatures of Hitler and the Nazis.

Szyk was, according to Gooche, “sent” by Great Britain to the United States in 1940.

“He’d been doing cartoons in Britain and France for the war effort,” Gooche said. “In his wife’s memoirs, which I have, she writes that the British wanted him to rouse the Americans so they’d join the war. Some of the earliest cartoons were vicious, and effective. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, his drawing of Yamamoto, who commanded the attack, was on the cover of Time magazine.

“Szyk was known as ‘Roosevelt’s soldier with a pen.’ ”

Szyk’s anti-Nazi cartoons also found a ready audience in Esquire and Collier’s magazines. The images were so damaging to the Nazi cause that, according to Gooche, Hitler placed the price of $50,000 (U.S.) on Szyk’s head and personally ordered the death of the artist’s mother.

At least one generation of Jewish youth may be unwittingly familiar with Szyk’s work: He illustrated the popular religious school text, “Pathways Through the Bible,” and contributed its dedication:

“In March 1943 my beloved 70-year-old mother, Eugenia Szyk, was taken from the ghetto of Lodz to the Nazi furnaces of Maidanek. With her voluntarily went her faithful servant, the good Christian, Josefa, a Polish peasant. Together, hand in hand, they were burned alive. . . . .”

Szyk paintings hang in museums and private collections around the world. His illustrations grace available editions of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” “Canterbury Tales” and “Andersen’s Fairy Tales.” (A current edition of Szyk’s illuminations of “The Ten Commandments,” with Christian commentary added, retails for under $10.)

Gooche considers a limited edition Jewish Haggadah, first printed on velum in London in 1940, to be “probably the most beautiful book published in the 20th Century.” An Irvine man recently paid $12,500 for Gooche’s copy. The first copy of the book, presented to King George VI of England, remains in Windsor Castle.

So why was Szyk forgotten?

“Szyk was known in the United States primarily for his cartoons,” Gooche said. “The military used his work for posters for the soldiers. He did ‘Buy Bonds’ posters that were shown on the side of a building in Times Square in lights. But when the war was over, we didn’t want to remember the war.

“Illumination was a lost art for 400 years before Szyk rediscovered it. He wrote that it took him 10 years to study the ancient masters and techniques and to teach himself the work. This wasn’t a popular style.

“But the kiss of death was the McCarthy era.”

Gooche produced a news article in which the House Committee on Un-American Activities named Judy Holliday and Jose Ferrer (both of whom had just won Oscars, for “Born Yesterday” and “Cyrano de Bergerac,” respectively) as “affiliated with various ‘peace’ groups or Communist fronts.”

Szyk was also named--alongside Albert Einstein, Marlon Brando, Frank Lloyd Wright, pianist Artur Schnabel and authors Dashiel Hammett and Thomas Mann. Contracts and commissions were canceled, and the devastation for Szyk, who had dedicated his life to pro-American activities, was apparently complete.

He died five months later of a heart attack.

* The “United Nations Series” of heliochrome lithographs by manuscript illuminator Arthur Szyk is on display through Thursday at Placentia Library, 411 E. Chapman Ave., Placentia. Hours, Monday through Wednesday, noon to 8 p.m., Thursday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free. (714) 528-1906.