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Feb 12, 2025

FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter FEBRUARY 2025 with Signs and Wonders

2025-02-12T07:45:33-05:00February 12th, 2025|Newsletter|Comments Off on FRITZ ASCHER SOCIETY Newsletter FEBRUARY 2025 with Signs and Wonders

Dear Friends, February is a busy month with many interesting events in our orbit, starting with two film screenings at the JCC Manhattan, continuing with a virtual conversation with author Melvin Bukiet and a presentation of Fritz Ascher's art, and two exhibitions, of which one is closing in early March in Germany, and one just opened in Portland, Oregon. Please join us at the JCC Manhattan for two important film screenings: Tuesday, February 4, 7:00PM ET The Return from the Other Planet, 2023 Screening followed by Q+A with director Assaf Lapid Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, New York 20% off tickets with code fritz2025 Tuesday, February 11, [...]

Jan 20, 2025

Opening reception
SURVIVAL AND INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY:
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, Oregon

2025-01-27T07:31:46-05:00January 20th, 2025|, |Comments Off on Opening reception
SURVIVAL AND INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY:
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, Oregon

Please join us for the opening event! Survival and Intimations of Immortality: The Art of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana is a unique and powerful exhibition that explores the role of art and creativity, bringing the past into the present by focusing on three generations of artists from the same family. Alice Lok Cahana (1929-2017) was a Holocaust survivor who pledged she would become an artist if she survived the war. Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, Alice’s oldest son, is a poet and survivor of a major stroke. Kitra Cahana, Ronnie’s daughter, is a filmmaker and photographer. This exhibition reveals how the tragedy of the Holocaust impacted multiple generations of a family and how each member transformed [...]

Jan 2, 2025

Plunderer. The Life and Time of a Nazi Art Thief
Screening followed by Q+A with producer John Friedman
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, New York

2025-02-12T14:47:01-05:00January 2nd, 2025|, , |Comments Off on Plunderer. The Life and Time of a Nazi Art Thief
Screening followed by Q+A with producer John Friedman
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, New York

Hermann Goering’s art dealer, Bruno Lohse, prospered by selling stolen art for decades after WWII, while Jewish families struggled to regain their paintings and memories. Captured and interrogated by the Monuments Men after the war, he served a brief prison sentence. After his release, he dealt profitably in stolen art for sixty years after the war, selling to collectors, galleries, and major museums. Highlighting stories of Holocaust survivors working to reclaim their families' lost artworks, Plunderer reveals the failures of post-war justice and the continuing complicity of governments and the art trade. Screening followed by Q+A with producer John Friedman. In partnership with The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art. Director: Hugo Macgregor Year: 2024 Runtime: [...]

Dec 4, 2024

Love, Betrayal and Ascher’s Unpainted Pictures
Tour by Exhibition Curator Jutta Götzmann
Haus der Graphischen Sammlung, Freiburg (Germany)

2024-12-18T05:55:27-05:00December 4th, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Love, Betrayal and Ascher’s Unpainted Pictures
Tour by Exhibition Curator Jutta Götzmann
Haus der Graphischen Sammlung, Freiburg (Germany)

Jutta Götzmann, exhibition curator of "Love and Betrayal," presents the artist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970) during a tour. In addition to early charcoal, graphite and ink drawings, colorful gouaches are fascinating. Poems that are considered his "unpainted pictures" and were created in secret during the National Socialist era complement the exhibition. BUY TICKETS HERE The Fritz Ascher Society is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization. Your donation is fully tax deductible. YOUR SUPPORT MAKES OUR WORK POSSIBLE. THANK YOU. DONATE HERE

Nov 22, 2024

SURVIVAL AND INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY:
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, Oregon

2025-02-04T06:47:41-05:00November 22nd, 2024||Comments Off on SURVIVAL AND INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY:
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, Oregon

Survival and Intimations of Immortality: The Art of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana is a unique and powerful exhibition that explores the role of art and creativity, bringing the past into the present by focusing on three generations of artists from the same family. Alice Lok Cahana (1929-2017) was a Holocaust survivor who pledged she would become an artist if she survived the war. Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, Alice’s oldest son, is a poet and survivor of a major stroke. Kitra Cahana, Ronnie’s daughter, is a filmmaker and photographer. This exhibition reveals how the tragedy of the Holocaust impacted multiple generations of a family and how each member transformed the destructive trauma of the Shoah into [...]

Nov 21, 2024

Fred Kormis – Sculpting the Twentieth Century
Presentation by Barbara Warnock, London (England)

2025-01-09T14:27:52-05:00November 21st, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Fred Kormis – Sculpting the Twentieth Century
Presentation by Barbara Warnock, London (England)

Born in 1894 in Frankfurt into an Austrian and German Jewish family, Fred Kormis’ life and career were shaped and disrupted by some of the most significant events of the twentieth century. Kormis saw action and was wounded in the First World War as part of the Austrian army, before being held for four years as a prisoner of war in Siberia. Image above: Fred Kormis, Two Heads, c. 1930s © Wiener Holocaust Library Collections He worked as an artist during the politically and culturally tumultuous Weimar period, and during the Nazi era revealed himself to be Jewish, a decision that led to the removal of his art from galleries. Kormis and his wife Rachel Sender [...]

Nov 19, 2024

Gertrud Kauders, Jewish Artist from Prague (1883-1942):
Surprises, Enigmas, Opportunities
Presentation by Simon During, Brisbane (Australia)

2024-12-05T06:58:15-05:00November 19th, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Gertrud Kauders, Jewish Artist from Prague (1883-1942):
Surprises, Enigmas, Opportunities
Presentation by Simon During, Brisbane (Australia)

While workmen were demolishing a house on Prague’s outskirts in July 2018 they were astonished to be deluged by works of art falling from a ceiling. Nobody knew the works had been hidden there. The art turned out to be that of Gertrud Kauders who had hidden them in the house of a friend before being deported to Theresienstadt and then to Majdanek where she was murdered on arrival in May 1942. Kauders was a serious and inventive artist, quite well known in Prague’s art world of the time.  She worked in oils, pencil, crayon, watercolour and gouache. Now her work is held by museums around the world. Image above: Gertrud Kauders © Kauders Family Estate [...]

Oct 28, 2024

Liebe und Verrat: Fritz Ascher
Kurator Erik Riedel im Gespräch mit Rachel Stern
Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt (Germany)

2024-11-24T14:39:31-05:00October 28th, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Liebe und Verrat: Fritz Ascher
Kurator Erik Riedel im Gespräch mit Rachel Stern
Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt (Germany)

Der Maler, Grafiker und Dichter Fritz Ascher (1893-1970) wurde bereits als 16-Jähriger von Max Liebermann an die Akademie in Königsberg empfohlen. Ab 1913 gehörte er zu den gefragten Malern in Berlin. Er war ein genauer Beobachter seiner Zeit; die Urkatastrophe des Ersten Weltkriegs und die revolutionären Unruhen in Berlin führten ihn zu christlichen und mystischen Themen, die er radikal neu interpretierte. Nach 1933 erhielt Ascher als Jude Berufsverbot. Während der Pogrome am 9./10. November 1938 wurde er verhaftet und im Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen und im Potsdamer Gestapo-Gefängnis interniert. Die Schoa überlebte er ab 1942 versteckt in einem Keller in Berlin-Grunewald. Während dieser einsamen Jahre verfasste er Gedichte. Als Künstler fand Ascher nach 1945 seinen ganz eigenen Stil. Angeregt vom nahe [...]

Oct 22, 2024

Fritz Ascher in Berlin – eine Spurensuche
Kurzvortrag und Führung von Rachel Stern, New York
Augustinermuseum, Haus der Graphischen Sammlung, Freiburg

2024-11-24T14:40:53-05:00October 22nd, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Fritz Ascher in Berlin – eine Spurensuche
Kurzvortrag und Führung von Rachel Stern, New York
Augustinermuseum, Haus der Graphischen Sammlung, Freiburg

Der spätexpressionistische Künstler Fritz Ascher (1893-1970) überlebte zwei Weltkriege und die Verfolgung durch das nationalsozialistische Regime. Als aufmerksamer Beobachter der Schrecken des Ersten Weltkriegs und der revolutionären Unruhen wandte er sich christlich-spirituellen Themen zu, die er radikal neu interpretierte. In intimen Zeichnungen beschäftigte er sich ab 1916 mit dem Thema Liebe und Verrat, sowohl in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit dem Kreuzigungsthema als auch mit der Figur des Bajazzo in der tragikomischen Oper „I Pagliacci“. Kurzvortrag und Führung von Rachel Stern zeigen den Künstler in seinem sozialen und politischen Umfeld. Image above: Fritz Ascher, Im Wald, um 1919. Weisse Gouache und schwarze Tusche über Aquarell und Bleistift auf Papier, 34 x 32,2 cm © Bianca Stock The late expressionist [...]

Oct 11, 2024

Felka Platek – Artist and Companion of the Painter Felix Nussbaum
Presentation by Anne Sibylle Schwetter, Osnabrück (Germany)

2024-11-20T13:50:30-05:00October 11th, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Felka Platek – Artist and Companion of the Painter Felix Nussbaum
Presentation by Anne Sibylle Schwetter, Osnabrück (Germany)

Felka Platek (1899 Warsaw – 1944 Auschwitz) came to Berlin from Warsaw in the early 1920s to become a painter. In 1932 she followed her friend and later husband Felix Nussbaum (1904 Osnabrück – 1944 Auschwitz) to Italy. In 1935 they decided to go into exile in Belgium. However, neither of them could escape persecution by the Nazis. They were captured in their hiding place in Brussels on June 21, 1944 and murdered in Auschwitz shortly afterwards. Image above: Felka Platek, Self-portrait in front of an open window, around 1940. Gouache on drawing paper, 65 x 49.7 cm. Felix-Nussbaum-Haus at Museumsquartier Osnabrück, on permanent loan from the Felix Nussbaum Foundation, photo © Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Osnabrück Anne [...]

Oct 1, 2024

Otto Antoine (1865-1951): “The Painter of Berlin” between Compliance and Defiance
Presentation by Kathleen Langone and Q&A with Jacquelyn Delin McDonald

2024-10-09T14:25:07-04:00October 1st, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Otto Antoine (1865-1951): “The Painter of Berlin” between Compliance and Defiance
Presentation by Kathleen Langone and Q&A with Jacquelyn Delin McDonald

Kathleen Langone speaks about the German born painter Otto Antoine (1865-1951), followed by a conversation with Jacquelyn Delin McDonald from the University of Texas at Dallas. Image above: Otto Antoine, Brandenburg Gate, 1928. Oil on cardboard Antoine displayed an early artistic talent but, due to economic circumstances, started a long-term career as a civil servant, initially as a clerk at a local post office. His drawing abilities were soon recognized, and he increasingly was used as a painter, engraver and designer of stamps for the German postal service. They also sent him to many far-flung places outside of Germany (such as Africa) to paint bucolic landscapes of those countries, which were used to promote their [...]

Sep 30, 2024

Sculpting a Life: Chana Orloff during Occupation, Escape, Exile, Return (1938-1949)
Presentation by Paula J. Birnbaum, San Francisco (CA)

2024-10-23T13:54:17-04:00September 30th, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Sculpting a Life: Chana Orloff during Occupation, Escape, Exile, Return (1938-1949)
Presentation by Paula J. Birnbaum, San Francisco (CA)

This talk analyzes the Ukrainian born French sculptor Chana Orloff’s (1888-1968) perseverance and tremendous sacrifices during World War II, when the Nazis came to her studio, stole much of her work, and brutally vandalized what they left behind. Her tenacity led to her narrow and difficult escape from Paris first to the south of France and then on to Geneva with her young adult son, who was disabled. The presentation explores how Orloff managed her life and career under Nazi Occupation in Paris for two years, when she was among the many French and foreign-born Jews banned from public spaces, forced to observe a curfew and wear the yellow armband with the Star of David and the word “Juif” [...]