He came to the United States in 1905 with his brother; he became Isaac Maud at Ellis Island. He did odd jobs while studying art at night at
Cooper Union and the anarchist social center, the
Ferrer School. While working as a messenger boy, he was given the nickname Sunny; he kept the name, but Yiddishized it to Zuni. In 1907 with other young intellectuals he founded the Yiddish magazine
Di Yungt and later they started a satirical magazine,
Der Kibitzer. His drawings in these journals were one or more panels and were about Jewish life; his first comic story in Yiddish was in 1910. From 1916-1920 he was the entertainment section editor of
Forverts, as well as a cartoonist for several other newspapers. In 1924, he joined friends
Yosl Cutler and
Jack Tworkov to be set and costume designers for
Maurice Schwartz's production of
Abraham Goldfaden's
Di Kishefmacherin. They created puppets for the show and decided to launch a puppet theatre. Tworkov dropped out very soon, and the amalgam name became Modicot. The "semi-creepy Yiddish speaking puppets" were grotesque and sets tended to the surreal. Plays were delivered with an artful and sharp satire of Yiddish life, with a left-wing political outlook, but maintaining a comic edge. Collaborating with Cutler, their work was always infused with social commentary,
surrealism,
cubism and cynical humor. The plays articulated "the clash between tradition and modernity marking Yiddish life in New York," and "skewered everything from contemporary politics to Jewish life." In 1929 Modicot toured for three years, first in America, then Europe, with visits to London, Paris, Vilna, Warsaw, Amsterdam and finishing in the Soviet Union. The European tours were well received. In Vilna they played to 75 sold-out performances in one month. In Warsaw the Yiddish press had unmitigated praise for Modicot, recommending it to "all Jewish workers," and noting: The entire program is full of extraordinary folk humor, wonderful ideas, and splendid technique. We have truly Jewish wrinkles and gestures, words and mumbles, signs and groans, which came about from Jewish sources and a Jewish way of life. Cutler and Maud had differing but complementary personality profiles:Cutler is the opposite of Maud. Maud is difficult, Cutler—easy. Maud is stubborn, Cutler—acquiescent. Maud is brutally critical, Cutler—naive and mild. The poet Zishe Vaynper also commented on how different their personalities were, writing that their artistic work together created a kind of harmony which brought them to their artistic goal. He further stated that they were the only artists who brought an element of fun into the proletarian movement. He illustrated numerous books, primarily for children, and worked as a set designer for Yiddish theatre. He was also active as a
calligrapher. He is additionally recognized for his work as a sculptor, book designer, poster artist, and as a writer of parodies and short stories.
Retrospective In 2015 the theatre collective
Great Small Works performed
Muttergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls, a bilingual Yiddish-English revisiting of Maud and Cutler's artistic works, re-working original scripts and using puppets and actors. Their work has recently been considered to be a model for changing power relationships. ==Later life and death==