Item #55681 [COMPLETE SET OF TEXTILE CHILDREN'S BOOKS BY THE AUSTRIAN-JEWISH ARTIST IN EXILE] Eleska book, nos. 1–5 (all published), separately titled: I see; I count; I eat; I play; Papa, Mama, Baby (no. 1 is included in three different variants). Lene Schneider-Kainer.

[Schneider-Kainer, Lene].

[COMPLETE SET OF TEXTILE CHILDREN'S BOOKS BY THE AUSTRIAN-JEWISH ARTIST IN EXILE] Eleska book, nos. 1–5 (all published), separately titled: I see; I count; I eat; I play; Papa, Mama, Baby (no. 1 is included in three different variants).

[New York]: Eleska (Lene Schneider-Kainer), 1941–1944. Square octavos (mostly between 23 × 23 and 20.5 × 20 cm; variant of no. 15.5 × 14.5 and 20 × 21.5 cm). Original color-printed cotton fabric self-wrappers; [12; 12; 16; 12; 12; 12; 12 pp] with full-page color illustrations printed on cotton. A few volumes are slightly stained and toned, else very good; no. 3 and a variant of no. 1 are in perfect condition. Item #55681

Complete run (including three distinct variants of the first volume) of the “Eleska Books” series of textile children’s books, created by the artist while in exile. Lene Schneider-Kainer (1885–1971), a Jewish artist who grew up in Vienna, had been living with the graphic artist, illustrator, production designer, and costume designer Ludwig Kainer since 1912, and moved in the circles of the “Der Sturm” gallery around Herwarth Walden, Arnold Schönberg, Franz Werfel, and Else Lasker-Schüler. She held her first solo exhibition in 1917 at the prominent Berlin gallery Gurlitt, which also ran a renowned publishing house where Schneider-Kainer published the two erotic print portfolios “Zehn weibliche Akte” (Ten Female Nudes) and “Vor dem Spiegel” (Before the Mirror). Although she was able to make a living from the sale of her paintings and prints in the 1920s, she nevertheless opened a luxury linen shop in Berlin; her interest in textiles was already evident.

After separating from Ludwig Kainer, she traveled through Russia, Persia, India, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Tibet, Hong Kong, and China in 1926 with the writer Bernhard Kellermann on assignment for the newspaper “Berliner Tageblatt.” Her paintings, drawings, and photographs were part of the reports regularly published in the “Berliner Tageblatt.” She often traveled with caravans or rode a donkey to get around. When Schneider-Kainer returned via the Trans-Siberian Railway after about two years, she had gathered the material for the documentary film “Im Reiche des Silbernen Löwen” (In the Realm of the Silver Lion) as well as the illustrations for Kellermann’s travelogue “Der Weg der Götter” (The Path of the Gods), published in 1929. Further illustrations by her appeared in the women’s magazines “Vogue” and “Die Dame”. Prompted by the looming political developments in Germany, she lived in Mallorca starting in 1932 and in Ibiza starting in 1933, where she also took in emigrants at her guesthouse, Ca Vostra. After her guesthouse was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War, Schneider-Kainer moved to New York and founded a children’s book publishing house there. She named it “Eleska,” derived from her initials “L,” “S,” and “K.” Through the publishing house, she distributed her five washable and chewable children’s books made of linen fabric. In 1954, she moved to Bolivia and, together with her son, opened a textile factory in Cochabamba. The textiles were printed with indigenous patterns and also exported to the United States. (See Elfriede Wiltschnigg, in: AKL 102, p. 114.)

Outside of the numbered series 1 to 5 (thus complete), Eleska also printed another book, “Our Neighbors: Creative Play Book” (1944), on thin cotton fabric leaves and with paper wrappers.

Handbuch der Österreichischen Kinder- und Jugendbuchautorinnnen vol. II, pp. 1026ff; See also: Philipps, German Children's Youth Literature in Exile, pp. 68ff. (only 1 and 2).

As of April 2026, KVK and OCLC show no complete run of the series. North American holdings include seven copies of vol. 1, five copies of vol. 2; two copies of vol. 4; and none of vol. 5 in North America.