For I See Old Things Happening Again:
Jill Freedman’s “Missing Generations”
Presentation by Susan Chevlowe, PhD, followed by a conversation with family member Wendy Wernick
ONLINE
VA, United States
Susan Chevlowe, PhD, Chief Curator and Museum Director of Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection at Hebrew Home at Riverdale, presents the documentary and street photographer Jill Freedman (1939-2019), followed by a conversation with family member Wendy Wernick. When the documentary and street photographer Jill Freedman went to Poland in April 1993, on the occasion of the 50thanniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, she wrote that she made the journey as a pilgrim “to mourn the dead, to honor them,” along with the “survivors, their children, old soldiers and witnesses.” She returned to the sites of destruction again the next year after receiving a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation (APF), which supports the work of photojournalists. Susan [...]
Through the Lens of Trude Fleischmann (1895-1990)
Presentation by Carey Mack Weber, Fairfield (CT),
followed by a conversation with Barbara Rosenberg Loss
ONLINE
VA, United States
Presentation by Carey Mack Weber, Curator and Director, Fairfield University Art Museum, followed by a conversation with Fleischmann’s cousin, Barbara Rosenberg Loss. Introductory remarks by Stephanie Buhmann, PhD, Head of Visual Arts, Architecture and Design at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York. Image above: Trude Fleischmann, Sandra and Barbara with Golden Heart Necklaces, 1951, gelatin silver print. Courtesy of Barbara Rosenberg Loss. © Trude Fleischmann After opening her own studio in Vienna at the age of just 25, Trude Fleischmann (1895-1990) had great success there in the 1920s and 30s photographing artists, dancers, actors, and other key cultural figures of the era. When the Nazis invaded during the Anschluss in 1938, she fled first [...]
Tamara de Lempicka: Modern Maverick
Presentation by Alison de Lima Greene, Houston (TX)
ONLINE
VA, United States
Join curator Alison de Lima Greene for an introduction to the remarkable arc of Lempicka’s career as she rose to the pinnacle of café society in 1920s and 1930s Paris, and her American odyssey after she fled Europe in 1939. Image above: Tamara de Lempicka, Portrait of a Young Woman in a Blue Dress, 1922, oil on canvas, private collection © 2025 Tamara de Lempicka Estate, LLC / ADAGP, Paris / ARS, NY, Image © 2023 Christie's Images Limited Capturing the glamour and vitality of 1920s postwar Paris and the cosmopolitan sheen of Hollywood celebrity, Tamara de Lempicka (1894–1980) infused her paintings with a brilliant sense of fashion, design, and the theatrical. Currently the [...]
Victor Brauner’s Departures and Returns
Presentation by Irina Cărăbaș, Bucharest (Romania)
followed by a conversation with Nicola Baird, PhD, London (UK)
ONLINE
VA, United States
This presentation by Irina Cărăbaș from the National University of Arts in Bucharest focusses on several key artistic and political contexts relevant to Brauner’s work and biography, as well as his reception in Romania. It is followed by a conversation with Nicola Baird, PhD. Introductory remarks by Sorina Neagu, Director of DOR – Romanian Diaspora. Image above: Victor Brauner, Composition, not dated, oil on canvas, 53,5 x 64,5 cm, National Museum of Arts of Romania, Bucharest (INV. 73973/8502) © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris Born in Piatra Neamț, Romania into a Jewish family, Victor Brauner (1903-1966) took part in shaping several avant-garde groups in Bucharest since his early twenties. [...]
THE ART SPY. The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland
Book talk by Michelle Young, New York and Paris
ONLINE
VA, United States
In this book talk, author Michelle Young presents WWII Resistance Hero Rose Valland (1898–1980), an unlikely heroine who infiltrated the Nazi leadership in Paris during World War II to save the world’s most treasured artworks. Image above: Book Cover THE ART SPY. The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WWII Resistance Hero Rose Vallant by Michelle Young (Harper One, May 13, 2025) Rose Vallant was a curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris when the Nazis invaded France, occupied the museum, and began using it as a sorting center for thousands of pieces of stolen art from across Europe. Valland made herself appear as nonthreatening and essential as possible, retaining her position in the museum [...]
DEAR MISS PERKINS.
A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany
Book talk by Rebecca Brenner Graham, Ph.D.
ONLINE
VA, United States
In this book talk, author Rebecca Brenner Graham, Ph.D. speaks about “DEAR MISS PERKINS. A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany,” which focusses on an unknown aspect of Frances Perkins’ prolific career as the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, the longest-serving labor secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. Perkins’s early experiences working in Chicago’s famed Hull House, and as a firsthand witness to the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist fire, shaped her determination to advocate for immigrants and refugees. As Secretary of Labor, she wrestled with widespread antisemitism and isolationism, finding creative ways to work around quotas and restrictive immigration laws. Diligent, resilient, empathetic, yet steadfast, she [...]
WHAT IF?
Presentation by Ori Z Soltes, PhD, Washington, DC
ONLINE
VA, United States
This image-rich talk by Georgetown University professor Ori Z Soltes considers 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 Ze'ev and Alisa Shek, [...]
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 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 boarded transports taking them to concentration camps. The story of the Kindertransports is an extraordinary piece of history - untold far too long. The children who lived the trauma and terror of being uprooted from secure homes tell [...]
The Three Exiles of the German-born artist Samson Schames (1898-1967)
Conversation with Annika Friedman (Germany), Rachel Dickson, PhD (UK) and Ori Z Soltes, PhD (USA)
ONLINE
VA, United States
In this virtual event, a transatlantic panel discusses the artist Samson Schames. Annika Friedman (Germany) elaborates on the artist’s beginnings in Frankfurt, Rachel Dickson, PhD (UK) gives an insight into the work he made in British exile, and Ori Z. Soltes, PhD (USA) speaks about the work he created in his new home, New York. The presentations are followed by a moderated discussion and Q&A. Image above: Samson Schames, Granite Quarry No. 1, 1958. Casein on board, 20.75 in. x 26.25 in. Leo Baeck Institute New York 2007.97 Samson Schames was a German-Jewish artist born in 1898 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, into a prominent Jewish family involved in the textile business. He initially trained [...]
Theodore Fried (1902-1980): In Hiding and Beyond
Presentation by Sofia Thornblad, Tulsa (OK)
ONLINE
VA, United States
This presentation explores the historical background and creative works of Hungarian-born Jewish artist Theodore Fried (1902-1980). He was educated at the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts and moved to Vienna in 1924 and to Paris in 1925. He met and married his first wife Anna and his son Christopher was born in 1928. That same year, the artist had his first one-man show, and was included in important shows in Vienna, Prague, Berlin, and Paris. Image above: Detail of Theodore Fried, Self Portrait, 1938. Oil on canvas. Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art, Tulsa (OK) When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Fried’s work was labeled as “degenerate”. He fled with [...]
