“Fritz Ascher: Themes and Variations”
A Digital Exhibition Experience
PCEtLWJlZ2luIGt1bnN0bWF0cml4LS0+IDxpZnJhbWUgYWxsb3dmdWxsc2NyZWVuPSJ0cnVlIiBmcmFtZWJvcmRlcj0iMCIgc2Nyb2xsaW5nPSJubyIgc3JjPSJodHRwczovL2FydC5rdW5zdG1hdHJpeC5jb20vYXBwcy9hcnRzcGFjZXMvaW5kZXguaHRtbD9leHRlcm5hbD10cnVlJnNwbGFzaHNjcmVlbj10cnVlJmxhbmd1YWdlPWVuJnVpZD0yNTA5NiZleGhpYml0aW9uPTE5NjAyNTgiIHdpZHRoPSIxMDAlIiBoZWlnaHQ9IjYwMCI+PC9pZnJhbWU+PCEtLWVuZCBrdW5zdG1hdHJpeC0tPg== This digital exhibition includes important examples from the oeuvre of the German Jewish Expressionist artist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970). Ascher’s career extended from prior to the First World War until the late 1960s. However, Ascher’s artistic trajectory was interrupted due to persecution under National Socialism, and he spent much of the Second World War in hiding, concealed in a family friend’s basement. Ascher’s work consequently encompasses both the vibrant artistic scene in early-20th-century Germany, as well as the trauma and aesthetic shifts consequent of Ascher’s persecution and deprivations during the twelve years of the Nazi regime. These selected works are representative not only of critical moments in Ascher’s personal and artistic development, but also of key themes that occupied Ascher’s [...]
“Identity, Art and Migration”
Online Exhibition
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
“Identity, Art and Migration” investigates the experience of seven Jewish European artists who were forced to abandon their country of origin, or remain in hiding for years, in response to Nazi policies in effect from 1933 to 1945. These six artists: Anni Albers, Friedel Dzubas, Eva Hesse, Rudi Lesser, Lily Renée and Arthur Szyk emigrated to the United States, while one, Fritz Ascher, stayed behind in Germany, hiding in a basement for three years. These artists’ lives and work address the multi-layered concept of identity and the particulars of its expression from slightly different angles. We invite you to explore with us how these wrenching experiences affected their sense of who they were, and the art they made. ENTER ONLINE [...]
WHAT IF?
Presentation by Ori Z Soltes, PhD, Washington, DC
ONLINE
VA, United States
This image-rich talk by Dr. Ori Z Soltes from Georgetown University in Washington DC will consider some of the many Jewish artists destroyed by the Holocaust who had either begun or were poised to add significant threads to the tapestry of twentieth century visual art. Some are now well-known and others remain obscure—but what if artists like Charlotte Salomon and Felix Nussbaum or like Erna Dem and Fritz Taussig had survived to do more art? What additional significant contributions might they have made? Image above: Bedřich Fritta (Friedrich Taussig), Rear Entrance, Theresienstadt Ghetto, 1941–1944. India ink and wash on paper, 51 x 36.5 cm Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem. Gift of the Prague Committee for Documentation, courtesy of [...]
Ruth Morley and Lore Segal, Kindertransport Survivor Artists on Film
Film Screening and Conversation with Director Melissa Hacker
ONLINE
VA, United States
Join film director Melissa Hacker in conversation with Rachel Stern about My Knees Were Jumping; Remembering the Kindertransports. In the talk, Melissa will show a new short film on the Kindertransports, 256,000 miles from home, which travels with four Kindertransport survivors as they retrace the journey they took 80 years earlier, as unaccompanied child refugees. In the nine months just prior to World War II close to 10,000 children were sent, without their parents, to the United Kingdom from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. These children were rescued by the Kindertransport movement. Most of the children never saw their parents again. Those courageous parents who had the strength to send their children off to an unknown fate soon [...]
Matisse at War. Art and Resistance in Nazi Occupied France
Book talk by Christopher C. Gorham
ONLINE
VA, United States
When the Degenerate Art exbibit opened in Munich in the summer of 1937, works by notable foreign modernists were denigrated along with German artists. Henri Matisse’s Blue Window (1913) was legally seized by the Nazi regime for inclusion in the traveling exhibit, and his work was banned from German museums. REGISTER HERE If you are interested but can’t attend the event, please register anyways and you will receive the link to the recording. Participating in the event enables you to ask questions and be part of the discussion following the talk. https://fritzaschersociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Goering-1024x734.jpg Henri Matisse was among the modernists derided by the Nazis. That did not stop them from stealing his art. At the Jeu de Paume Museum, Paris, Dec. 2, 1941 Reichsmarschall [...]
