Exile
Death and Immortality:
The Gentle Power of Hans von Trotha’s “Pollak’s Arm”
Hans von Trotha and Ori Z Soltes in conversation
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Ludwig Pollak (Prague 1868-1943 Auschwitz) was an extraordinary connoisseur of antiquities--an Austro-Hungarian Jew whose path into academia was impeded by his religion, but who settled in Rome, where he carved out a unique place for himself as an expert in recognizing, understanding, and organizing great works of art. It was he who shaped and articulated the magnificent collections of JP Morgan. Of perhaps even greater consequence, his astute eye saw a sculpted fragment of an arm in a flea market that, he deduced, was the limb missing from the spectacular Hellenistic-Roman sculptural group known as Laocoon. He gifted that arm fragment to the Vatican so that it might complete the work that occupied an important place within [...]
Ludwig and Else Meidner.
An Artist Couple Exiled in London
Lecture by Erik Riedel, Frankfurt/Main (Germany)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
When Ludwig and Else Meidner met in 1925, he was already an established artist well-known for his so-called Apocalyptic Landscapes. Although Else started as Ludwig’s student, she developed a distinct independent style and he always praised her art as more refined than his own “coarse” works. As Else Meidner slowly gained recognition in Berlin art circles, her career was abruptly cut short by the Nazi-regime in 1933. She moved to Cologne with her husband in 1935; and they emigrated to England in 1939 only a few weeks before the war started. In London both lived largely unnoticed by the English art scene. But while Ludwig frustratedly returned to Germany, she decided to stay in England. Their complicated relationship developed from [...]
Sneak Preview of Theatrical Release “Three Minutes – A Lengthening”
Post-Screening Q&A with Director Bianca Stigter
and Author Glenn Kurtz, moderated by Dr. Ori Z Soltes
Quad Cinema, New York
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street, New York, NY, United States
"'Three Minutes' is more than a documentary about the Holocaust — it is an investigative drama, a meditation on the ethics of moving images and a ghost story about people who might be forgotten should we take those images for granted." Beatrice Loayza, The New York Times (Critic's Pick) [FULL ARTICLE HERE] Thank you to everyone who made the sneak screening such a huge success! Catch a screening of the film: NOW SCREENING NATIONWIDE - FIND YOUR CITY HERE Three minutes of footage of a 16mm home movie found in an attic in South Florida, shot by David Kurtz in 1938, are the only moving images remaining of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk, Poland before [...]
Behind the Bronze.
The Sculptor Maurice Blik (born 1939 Amsterdam)
Featuring Maurice Blik and Julian Freeman (both London, UK)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Maurice Blik has lived in England since being liberated from Bergen Belsen concentration camp, where he was taken as a small child from his birthplace, Amsterdam. The ability to come to terms with this experience and to confront the face of humanity that he has witnessed, stayed silent in his life for some 40 years. It finally found a voice in the passionate sculptures which began to emerge in the late 1970s when he created a series of horses’ heads. These noble and benevolent creatures posses an energy and a life force that seem just barely harnessed long enough to take their shape in the clay itself. Later he progressed to more figurative work in which the irrepressible joy [...]
The Enduring Legacy of
Chaim Gross (1902-1991)
With Daughter Mimi Gross and Sasha Davis
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Chaim Gross (1902-1991) fled Europe as a teenager after experiencing the violence of World War I and the disruption of his artistic training due to anti-Semitic policies. He arrived in New York City in 1921 and quickly found a welcoming environment among fellow artists, many of whom were also immigrants, at the Educational Alliance Art School. Despite difficult beginnings, Gross rose to become one of America’s leading twentieth-century sculptors and a key proponent of the direct carving movement. Although a small number of his works referenced his horrific early experiences and the later murder of family members in the Holocaust, his themes were largely joyful, showing mothers at play or acrobats and dancers. Image above: [...]
Out of Exile.
The Photography of Fred Stein (1909-1967)
With Son Peter Stein and Curator Ulrike Kuschel, Berlin (Germany)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY, United States
Fred Stein lived through some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century. He escaped Nazi Germany; he mingled with Chagall and Brecht in Paris; and he debated with Einstein in New York. He was a scholar, a refugee, and an idealist. But above all, he was a photographer. An early innovator of hand-held street photography in 1930s France and 1940s New York, his images are sophisticated, beautiful, and touching; his portraits include some of the most important people of the mid-20th century, like Albert Einstein. Image above: Fred Stein, Americans All, New York 1943 © Fred Stein Archive Fred Stein, Paris Evening, Paris 1934 © Fred Stein Archive [...]
Back into the Light.
Four Women Artists – Their Works. Their Paths.
Lecture by Eva Atlan, PhD, Frankfurt (Germany)
ONLINE
VA, United States
Erna Pinner, Rosy Lilienfeld, Amalie Seckbach, and Ruth Cahn were among the first women artists in Frankfurt to enjoy professional success. Throughout the Roaring Twenties, these four Jewish women left their mark on Frankfurt’s art scene, published and exhibited internationally, cultivated a cosmopolitan lifestyle, and competed with their male colleagues. When the National Socialists seized power, their careers came to an abrupt end. From then on, they were persecuted as Jews and their works ostracized; later, after the end of World War II, they were largely forgotten. Now, “Back into the Light” is at long last bringing them back to the public eye. The departure point is an article by art historian Sascha Schwabacher, published May 1935 [...]
DOROTHY BOHM (1924-2023): A WORLD OBSERVED
Lecture by Monica Bohm-Duchen, London (UK)
ONLINE
VA, United States
Dorothy Bohm was born Dorothea Israelit in Königsberg, East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1924 into an assimilated, affluent and cultured Jewish milieu. In 1932 her father chose to move the family to Memel (now Klaipeda) in Lithuania, but following the Nazi occupation of Memelland in March 1939, her parents decided to send their daughter, aged 14, to the safety of England, where she arrived in June 1939. She wasn’t to see her parents and sister again for over twenty years. Image above (appears as detail): Dorothy Bohm, Venice Carnival, 1987 © Dorothy Bohm Archive Dorothy Bohm, Self-Portrait, 1942, age 18. © Dorothy Bohm Archive Dorothy Bohm, Ascona, 1948. © Dorothy Bohm Archive [...]
The Missing Archive:
Bauhaus Designers and the Holocaust.
Presentation by Elizabeth Otto, PhD, Buffalo, NY
ONLINE
VA, United States
Histories of Germany’s Bauhaus art and design school (1919–33) usually position it exclusively as a movement in exile as soon as the Nazis took power in 1933. In fact, the vast majority of its members remained and embraced Nazism, survived it, or became its victims. In this talk, art historian Elizabeth Otto scrutinizes traces of the work and lives of Bauhäusler who, through their imprisonment and often deaths in the concentration-camp system, have largely been lost to the history of the Bauhaus movement. Using archival sources—often scant materials preserved by family members and friends, including documents, photographs, and private memoirs—she reconstructs aspects of these artists’ work and lives and considers how to write the histories that Nazi violence has taken [...]
Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1968), from Berlin to New York.
A life in photography
Talk by granddaughter Nadia Blumenfeld Charbit, Paris (France)
ONLINE
VA, United States
Photographer Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) survived two world wars to become one of the world's most highly-paid fashion photographers and a key influence on the development of photography as an art form. An experimenter and innovator, he produced an extensive body of work including drawings, collages, portraits and nudes, celebrity portraiture, advertising campaigns and his renowned fashion photography both in black and white and color. In this talk, Paris-based granddaughter Nadia Blumenfeld Charbit gives her personal insights into the life and work of the photographer Erwin Blumenfeld. Introduced by Rachel Stern, director of the Fritz Ascher Society. Image above: Erwin Blumenfeld, Double Self-Portrait with Linhoff, Paris, 1938 © Erwin Blumenfeld Estate Born to [...]
