Dear Friends,
Happy September!
This month, we continue our exploration of the work and life of the German-born artist Samson Schames (1898-1967), who we first discussed on August 27th – you can find the link to the recording below. On September 17th, our virtual event will focus on friends and family. By then, the exhibition at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York will have opened, and the publication date of the addition of Samson Schames to our online exhibition “Identity, Art and Migration” will be announced.
But first, we’ll start with the Hungarian-born artist Theodore Fried:
WEDNESDAY, September 3, 12:00PM EDT online
Theodore Fried (1902-1980): In Hiding and Beyond
Presentation by Sofia Thornblad
Theodore Fried, Self Portrait, not dated. Oil on canvas. Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art, Tulsa (OK)
This presentation will explore 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.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Fried’s work was labeled as “degenerate”. He fled with his family to unoccupied Southern France, from where, in 1942, a Quaker organization brought him and his family to the United States. Most of his artwork stayed behind, hidden throughout France. The bulk of it was not recovered until the 1970’s.
Fried settled in New York, where he lived for the rest of his life; summering in the Berkshires. In the early 1960s he founded, with his second wife Maria, the Hudson Guild Art Project, a community art school and gallery still thriving today. Over the course of his lifetime, Fried’s work was affected by loss, love, and changing aesthetics and values of the world around him. It offers a fascinating glimpse into an era that feels much more distant than it is.
Sofia Thornblad is the Chief Curator and Director of Collections and Holocaust Education for the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art in Tulsa Oklahoma. She has a BA in Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Keene State College and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of New Hampshire. Originally from the East Coast, she lives in Tulsa with her partner and their various pets. In her free time, she participates in local community theater productions both as a historical consultant and performer.
This event is part of the online series Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression.
And now to Samson Schames:
WEDNESDAY, September 17, 12:00PM EDT ONLINE
Samson Schames (1898-1967): Family and Friends
Conversation with Natalie Green Giles, James McCaffrey, and Charlie Scheidt.
Moderated by William Weitzer, PhD
Samson Schames, Self-Portrait with Dedication, 30 April 1967. Ink on paper, 17.5 x 14.5 in. Private collection
In this virtual event, a distinguished panel comprising family members, friends, and their descendants from New York will share memories of the German-born artist Samson Schames (1898-1967): Natalie Green Giles is a descendant of the Schames family, James McCaffrey is the son of Catherine O’Neill McCaffrey, a close friend, and Charlie Scheidt’s father was a childhood friend in Germany and reconnected in the US. Moderated by William (Billy) Weitzer, former Executive director of the Leo Baeck Institute New York.
A short film created by the Leo Baeck Institute-New York will introduce the artist.
This event is part of the online series Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression.
The exhibition LOST AND FOUND: The Art and Life of Samson Schames will be on view from September 15 to December 21, 2025, at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. It is organized by the Leo Baeck Institute New York|Berlin.
You can find the recordings of our virtual August events here, to watch, re-watch and pass on:
This month, we feature two important exhibitions in Germany:
Defiance: Jewish Women and Design in the Modern Era is on view until November 23, 2025 at the Jewish Museum Berlin.
This exhibition is the first to honor the work of German-Jewish craftswomen who, during a time marked by exclusion and upheaval, forged their own paths. It presents the lives and works of more than 60 Jewish female designers and demonstrates how they overcame societal barriers to fight for change and visibility — and how they paved the way for other women in the process.
Most of the artists featured in the exhibition are unknown today.
Do you remember Erik Riedel’s talk about Léo Maillet (1902-1990), who escaped from a deportation train bound for Auschwitz and lived in the French Cévennes under a false identity from 1942 onwards? The small exhibition at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt is worth a trip.
Léo Maillet. The Broken Mirror is on view until November 16, 2025 at the Jewish Museum Frankfurt.
The work of the painter and graphic artist Léo Maillet, who changed his name in exile from the original Leopold Mayer, reflects the numerous upheavals in his biography.
The self-portraits Maillet created in exile form the core of this special exhibition; they offer symbolic expression to the persecuted artist’s contradictory and precarious existence.
