Lectures
Jeanne Mammen (1890-1976)-
A Life Dedicated to Art
Lecture by Dr. Martina Weinland, Berlin
1014 - space for ideas
1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
Lecture by Dr. Martina Weinland Commissioner for Cultural Heritage at the Museum of the City of Berlin in Berlin (Germany) Followed by Q&A moderated by Rachel Stern Director and CEO, Fritz Ascher Society in New York The Berlin artist Jeanne Mammen (1890-1976) is best known for her depictions of strong, sensual women and Berlin city life. But there is much more to her 70 years of artistic output, with unique sketches, paintings and sculptures. In 1975, she tells the art historian Hans Kinkel, who conducts the only interview she will ever give: “You must always write that my pictures were created between 1890 and 1975. …I have always wanted to be just a pair of eyes, walking through [...]
Becoming Gustav Metzger:
Uncovering the Early Years (1945-1959)
Lecture by Nicola Baird, London (UK)
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1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
Lecture by Nicola Baird Research Officer and Curator at Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London Introduced by Rachel Stern Director and CEO of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York Born in Germany to Polish-Jewish orthodox parents in 1926, Gustav Metzger (1926-2017) was one of 10,000 Jewish children evacuated in 1939 to London as part of the Kindertransport. His parents, eldest brother, and maternal grandparents, all perished in the Holocaust. Upon the advice of Henry Moore, Metzger spent six months at the Cambridge School of Art, before enrolling at the Sir John Cass Institute in 1946, where he studied sculpture and attended David Bomberg’s life drawing classes at the Borough Polytechnic, alongside contemporaries [...]
New Frontiers of Provenance Research:
The Mosse Art Research Initiative (MARI)
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Meike Hoffmann, Berlin (Germany)
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1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
MARI is innovative in many ways. For the first time, descendants of victims of Nazi persecution are cooperating with German institutions in a public/private partnership in provenance research. After an initial three-year research period, the successful project at Freie Universität Berlin is now being continued. Numerous works from the former Mosse collection have already been recovered and restituted. In the process, surprising stories came to light showing the whole challenge range of provenance research and restitution. MARI's task, however, is not only to search for the works of the former collection, but also to gain insight into the strategies of the so called “Gleichschaltung” (consolidation) of the press just after the Nazis came to power in 1933, as well [...]
Sculpting the Light:
Avant-Garde to Auschwitz and Beyond.
Moissey Kogan (1879-1943)
Lecture by Helen Shiner, Oxford (UK)
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Lecture by Helen Shiner Director/Editor at the Moissey Kogan Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture & Prints, Oxford (UK) Introduced by Rachel Stern Director and CEO of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York Moissey Kogan (1879-1943) was an innovative, influential sculptor-craftsman and printmaker, whose career straddled the European avant-gardes of the first half of the 20th century. A cosmopolitan Russian Jew, whose work was marked by his interest in Jewish mysticism and theosophical beliefs, Kogan looked to non-European cultures and ancient sources, in common with many of his contemporaries in Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris, to root his avant-garde experimentations and revivals of ancient techniques, in what were considered more authentic means of expression. On the day [...]
Through the Prism of Time:
John H. Less (1923-2011)
and His Visual Impressions of
Holocaust Refuge in Shanghai
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1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
Presentation by Steven Less, PhD Senior research fellow emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and son of the artist in Heidelberg (Germany) and Hannah-Lea Wasserfuhr PhD Candidate at the Center for Jewish Studies in Heidelberg, Heidelberg (Germany) Moderated by Rachel Stern Director and CEO of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York Born in Berlin, John Hans Less (1923 – 2011) fled to Shanghai in September 1940 as a 16-year-old together with his family to escape Nazi persecution. Largely dependent on relief organizations to survive, the Less family soon went through further disruptions when the Japanese occupied the city and later confined Jewish refugees to the Hongkew [...]
Eva Hesse (1936–1970): Returning to the Source?
Featuring Eva’s sister Helen Charash and Ori Z. Soltes, PhD
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1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
Eva Hesse arrived to the United States as a 3-year-old, was raised in a community largely of Holocaust survivors, and by her Twenties was a rising star on the New York art scene, contributing a unique voice to the shaping of post-Abstract Expressionist art. A key turning point in her innovative art was a return visit to Germany on an artist fellowship. How do we understand the work of this brilliant figure whose life suddenly ended, from brain cancer, at the age of 34? She was born into an observant Jewish family in Hamburg, in a Germany being devoured by the Nazis. She and her older sister Helen were sent to the Netherlands in 1938—when she was not [...]
Rudi Lesser (1902–1988):
The Forgotten and Rediscovered Artist
Featuring Lillie Johnson Edwards, PhD and Ori Z. Soltes, PhD
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1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
Rudi Lesser, a graphic artist already gaining significant recognition in his twenties in Germany, survived the Holocaust in Scandinavia. Interestingly, he immigrated to the US just after the war, in 1946, and although achieving success in New York--and as the founder of the graphic arts department at Howard University in Washington, DC--never felt at home here. He returned to a different Germany, in 1957, where he lived in relative poverty and obscurity--but apparent contentment--for the remaining thirty years of his long life. Lesser was one of over 10 Jewish refugee professors at Howard University and among the more than 60 at Black colleges, primarily in the South. Like other Jewish and white progressives and liberals of his era, [...]
Remembering Friedel:
An Intimate View of Friedel Dzubas (1915-1994)
Featuring Karen Wilkin and Sandi Slone
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1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
In a prolific career that spanned nearly five decades, Friedel Dzubas (b. Berlin, 1915–d. 1994, Newton, Mass.) articulated his mature style by the 1970s, creating a striking visual language from counterpoised abstract shapes of brushed color that he juxtaposed, overlapped, and opened to reveal his gessoed grounds. Yet, in prior years, Dzubas’s early work in Berlin were influenced by Expressionist artist of the two primary groups known as Die Brücke and Die Blaue Reiter. As Dzubas told curator Charles Millard in 1982, “Their unheard-of brashness of color; that was really brave. That was very exciting. Color’s an emotional thing. These people not only spoke directly; they felt deeply. There was passion.” His early pen and ink watercolors embed the [...]
From Sea to Shining Sea:
Anni Albers in America (1899–1994)
Featuring Laura Muir and Ori Z. Soltes, PhD
1014 - space for ideas
1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
Anni Albers (Berlin 1899 – 1994 Orange, CT) found her artistic identity at the renowned Bauhaus--but not where she expected to. The gender-restrictive conditions at the school pushed her to textile work. As the Nazis forced the Bauhaus closure, Anni and her already well-known husband, Joseph Albers, immigrated to the United States, where Joseph and later Anni were invited to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. From there to New York and Yale University, while her husband gained renown as a teacher and practitioner of painting, Anni expanded her presence as an innovator in diverse textile media and styles, shaping a far-flung, influential career that resonates to this day. The United States presented Albers with new [...]
The Cartoon Crusader Comes to America:
Arthur Szyk’s Battle against the Nazis in the New World
Featuring Steven Luckert and Irvin Ungar
1014 - space for ideas
1014 5th Avenue, New York, New York, NY, United States
Prior to World War II, Polish-born Arthur Szyk (Lodz 1894 – 1951 New Canaan, CT) was best known for his ornately detailed renderings of historical subjects and Jewish themes. But after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he gained the accolades of international audiences for his biting caricatures of Nazi leaders and his efforts to garner support for the Allied cause and Europe’s persecuted Jews. In 1940, Szyk took his mighty pen to the United States, where he quickly became a popular artistic sensation. His images graced the covers and inside pages of leading magazines, like Time, Colliers, Esquire, Look, The American Mercury, Coronet, and Liberty. Szyk’s cartoons regularly appeared in The New York Post, The Chicago [...]
