Palestine Watercolors (1925)
Museum-Gallery Collection
In 1925 Ary went by ship to Palestine, where he remained for six months. In Jerusalem he made dozens of watercolor sketches of the city and its types, a crowd of youngsters usually surrounding him, and always a self-appointed leader to drive the unruly ones away. He roamed the hills and slept in primitive Arab towns; in one of them he contracted malaria and was desperately ill, and there were recurrences of the illness for years afterward. He photographed Chaim Weizman and Lord Balfour at the opening of the Hebrew University for the Rotogravure Section of the New York Times. He was asked by a prominent Arab to photograph his wife and daughters; it was the first time they had unveiled their faces to a stranger.