Rachel Stern2022-02-18T06:37:23-05:00March 4th, 2021|Events, Past Events|
The International Tracing Service (ITS), since 2019 called Arolsen Archives, was established by the Allies in 1948 as a central search and information center. They house the world’s most extensive collection of documents about the victims of National Socialist persecution, including documents from Nazi concentration camps, ghettoes and penal institutions, documents about forced laborers, and documents from the early post-war period about Displaced Persons, mainly Holocaust survivors, former concentration camp prisoners, and forced laborers. People who had fled the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union for political reasons are also included. The archive's holdings consist of 30 million documents in total and belong to UNESCO’s Memory of the World. At this event, Floriane Azoulay (Director) and Giora Zwilling (Deputy [...]
Rachel Stern2022-02-18T06:04:58-05:00March 3rd, 2021|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
The Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980) achieved world fame with his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes. Rüdiger Görner, author of the first English-language biography, depicts the artist in all his fascinating and contradictory complexity. He traces Kokoschka’s path from bête noire of the bourgeoisie and a so-called ‘hunger artist’ to a wealthy and cosmopolitan political and critical artist who played a major role in shaping the European art scene of the twentieth century and whose relevance is undiminished to this day. In 1934, Kokoschka left Austria for Prague, and in 1938, when the Czechs began to mobilize for the expected invasion by the German Wehrmacht, Kokoschka fled to the United Kingdom, where he remained during the war. Although he [...]
Rachel Stern2022-02-18T07:06:06-05:00February 22nd, 2021|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Born 1877 in Dortmund, the sculptor Benno Elkan (1877-1960) first studied painting in Munich and Karlsruhe. At the end of his studies, he turned to sculpture. As a young artist, he spent time in Paris, Rome, and Frankfurt. Elkan’s oeuvre was largely made up of commissions. In the beginning, he mainly created tombs. Medals, portrait busts of well-known personalities, monuments to victims and candelabras follow, partly for the religious (Jewish and Christian) context. Elkan fled persecution by the German Nazi regime to Great Britain in 1934and lived with his family in London until the end of his life. Perhaps the most important work besides the Menorah in Jerusalem (1956) was never built: Memorial to the Defenseless Victims of the Bombing [...]
Rachel Stern2022-02-18T06:31:18-05:00February 17th, 2021|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
During the first four decades of the twentieth century, Polish Jewish artist Arthur Szyk (1894–1951) was best known for his richly detailed book illustrations and magnificent illuminations on Jewish themes. He portrayed the Jews as a heroic nation that had resisted oppression through the ages and eventually triumphed. His Jews were fighters for their own freedom and the freedom of others. Szyk sought to redefine how the Jews viewed themselves and how others viewed them. His works thus challenged the notion that Jewish history was merely one long saga of suffering and, at the same time, refuted the then common antisemitic canard that the Jews were a cowardly people. With the coming to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler [...]
Rachel Stern2020-11-02T20:09:58-05:00September 30th, 2020|Events, Past Events, Send in the Clowns|
Twitter @Ascher_Society Giora Seeliger, Artistic Director and Founder of Red Noses Clowndoctors International, takes over the FAS Twitter account to answer your burning questions about clowning, the role of a healthcare clown, and anything else that comes to mind! Submit your questions in advance by writing to info@fritzaschersociety.org Part of "Send in the Clowns," an interactive two-week digital initiative, which explores the clown as a figure between tragedy and comedy, between self- identification and stage--a character designed to (literally) mask the performer’s true feelings behind a facade of happiness. “Send in the Clowns” uses the prominence of the “clown” figure in Fritz Ascher’s work as a lens through which to explore the duality of the clown both historically and today. [...]
Rachel Stern2020-10-28T14:24:47-04:00September 30th, 2020|Events, Past Events, Send in the Clowns|
Watch the recording of this event HERE. Roundtable featuring Giora Seeliger Artistic Director and Founder of the Red Noses Clowndoctors International Harry Page “Flash” the Clown Ed Stephan “Dumbbell” the Clown Moderated by Elizabeth Berkowitz Art Historian and Digital Interpretation Manager, The Fritz Ascher Society in New York One of the more appealing aspects of the clown subject to artists like Fritz Ascher was the divide between a public persona committed to joy and happiness, and the pain or sadness that might lurk beneath the real, human surface. Hospital or healthcare clowns straddle this divide every day of their professional lives—working to bring happiness to child patients who are often in circumstances that might otherwise inspire grief or pain. This [...]
Rachel Stern2020-09-29T20:08:44-04:00September 29th, 2020|Events, Send in the Clowns|
Twitter @Ascher_Society Actor and theater historian Matthew R. Wilson takes over the FAS Twitter account to discuss the history of the Commedia dell’Arte, key themes in the genre, and how the Commedia dell’Arte has impacted popular culture. Submit your questions in advance by writing to info@fritzaschersociety.org Part of "Send in the Clowns," an interactive two-week digital initiative, which explores the clown as a figure between tragedy and comedy, between self- identification and stage--a character designed to (literally) mask the performer’s true feelings behind a facade of happiness. “Send in the Clowns” uses the prominence of the “clown” figure in Fritz Ascher’s work as a lens through which to explore the duality of the clown both historically and today. Generously sponsored [...]
Rachel Stern2020-10-22T00:35:30-04:00September 29th, 2020|Events, Past Events, Send in the Clowns|
Watch the recording of this event HERE. Roundtable featuring Matthew R. Wilson Director (SDC), Actor (AEA, SAG-AFTRA), and Fight Director (SAFD, SDC), as well as a scholar and playwright Ori Z. Soltes Teaching Professor at Center for Jewish Civilization, Georgetown University, Washington D.C. Tricia Manuel / "Pricilla Mooseburger" the Clown Tricia Manuel is the unmistakable Pricilla Mooseburger! Moderated by Elizabeth Berkowitz Art Historian and Digital Interpretation Manager, The Fritz Ascher Society in New York How do we define “the clown,” historically, in art, and today, in practice? What is the appeal of the clown in performance, and how has the clown subject impacted popular culture? This roundtable pools the expertise from a diversity of fields to place Fritz Ascher’s interest in “the [...]
Rachel Stern2020-11-04T15:01:37-05:00September 17th, 2020|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE. Lecture featuring Rosa von der Schulenburg, Head of the Art Collection of the Academy of Arts in Berlin Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York John Heartfield (1891-1968) was a German visual artist who pioneered the use of art as a political weapon. This presentation starts with preliminary remarks about John Heartfield’s bequest in the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and shows how it is accessible nowadays. A short introduction of how all began follows, showing the background of the birth of Heartfield’s political photo-montages (World War I, Dada, Communist Party, Willi Münzenberg’s Die Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung in short AIZ), glances at Heartfield’s first exile stage in Prague and then focuses on [...]
Elizabeth Berkowitz2020-10-07T15:08:59-04:00September 16th, 2020|Lectures|
WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE. Lecture featuring Anne Sibylle Schwetter, Curator of the Felix Nussbaum Collection in the Felix Nussbaum House in the Osnabrück Museum Quarter, Osnabrück Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York The German-Jewish artist Felix Nussbaum (1904 Osnabrück - 1944 Auschwitz) started a promising career in Berlin around 1930, which ended abruptly when the National Socialists came to power in 1933. Years in exile in Italy and Belgium followed. In 1942 Nussbaum went into hiding in Brussels. The artist's last paintings were created here from June 1943 until shortly before his arrest in June 1944. A little later he was murdered in Auschwitz. Like hardly any other painter [...]
Rachel Stern2020-10-07T15:06:33-04:00August 31st, 2020|Events, Past Events|
WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT HERE. Lecture featuring Anne Sibylle Schwetter, Curator of the Felix Nussbaum Collection in the Felix Nussbaum House in the Osnabrück Museum Quarter, Osnabrück Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York The German-Jewish artist Felix Nussbaum (1904 Osnabrück - 1944 Auschwitz) started a promising career in Berlin around 1930, which ended abruptly when the National Socialists came to power in 1933. Years in exile in Italy and Belgium followed. In 1942 Nussbaum went into hiding in Brussels. The artist's last paintings were created here from June 1943 until shortly before his arrest in June 1944. A little later he was murdered in Auschwitz. Like hardly any other painter [...]
