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Fritz Ascher Society

Dec 4, 2024

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

2024-12-04T15:00:57-05:00December 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, Kuratorin der Ausstellung „Liebe und Verrat“ im Haus der Graphischen Sammlung, stellt bei einer Führung Fritz Aschers (1893–1970) künstlerische Vielfalt vor. Neben frühen Kohle-, Graphit- und Tuschzeichnungen faszinieren farbintensive Gouachen. Gedichte, die als seine „ungemalten Bilder“ gelten und während des Nationalsozialismus im Verborgenen entstanden, ergänzen die Ausstellung. Die Teilnahme kostet 2,50 Euro plus Eintritt. Image above: Jutta Götzmann. Photo Patrick Seegers 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 [...]

Nov 24, 2024

Behind the Glass: The Villa Tugendhat and Its Family
A book talk by Michael Lambek, Toronto (Canada)

2024-12-04T15:10:53-05:00November 24th, 2024|, |Comments Off on Behind the Glass: The Villa Tugendhat and Its Family
A book talk by Michael Lambek, Toronto (Canada)

In this book talk, Michael Lambek follows the intertwined history of Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Villa Tugendhat and the family who inhabited it from 1930-1938. Part memoir, part social history, the book traces the family from its origins in a Jewish ghetto to the present day, focussing on the author’s maternal grandmother, Grete Tugendhat who commissioned and championed the house, which is now a World Heritage Site in Brno, Czechia. Image above: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Villa Tugendhat, Brno (Czechia), photo David Zidlicky REGISTER FOR ONLINE EVENT Living room, Villa Tugendhat. Brno (Czechia) Boys by window, Villa Tugendhat, Brno (Czechia), 1935 Living room, [...]

Nov 22, 2024

IMMORTALITY, MEMORY, CREATIVITY, AND SURVIVAL
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, Oregon

2024-11-22T15:10:27-05:00November 22nd, 2024||Comments Off on IMMORTALITY, MEMORY, CREATIVITY, AND SURVIVAL
The Arts of Alice Lok Cahana, Ronnie Cahana and Kitra Cahana
Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, Oregon

The exhibition explores the work of three artists representing three generations of one family–Holocaust survivor Allice Lok Cahana (1929 – 2017), her oldest son, Ronnie Cahana (born 1953), a survivor of a major stroke, and his daughter, Kitra Cahana (born 1987), a filmmaker and photographer. Alice Lok Cahana grew up in Sarvar, Hungary. She survived four different camps in the last year of the war, losing every member of her extended family, except for her father and including her beloved older sister, Edith—who survived, only to perish from illness immediately after liberation. Alice swore an oath to herself while in the camps that, if she survived, she would become an artist; her oldest son Ronnie, intensely responsive to his [...]

Nov 21, 2024

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

2024-12-05T15:15:29-05:00November 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. 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 left Germany in 1933, and many of the works he left behind in Germany were lost. [...]

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” [...]

Sep 1, 2024

Misunderstandings and Contradictions:
The Art and Life of Jacqueline de Jong (1939-2024)
Presentation by Curator Ariella Wolens, Fort Lauderdale (FL)

2024-09-25T13:42:20-04:00September 1st, 2024|, , |Comments Off on Misunderstandings and Contradictions:
The Art and Life of Jacqueline de Jong (1939-2024)
Presentation by Curator Ariella Wolens, Fort Lauderdale (FL)

In this virtual talk, curator Ariella Wolens presents the late Dutch artist, Situationist, and Pataphysician Jacqueline de Jong (1939-2024). Born into a Jewish family in Enschede, Netherlands, De Jong’s infancy was spent in exile in Switzerland; she and her mother narrowly escaped deportation to Sobibor after being taken in by the resistance. For the rest of her life, she remained universally empathic, and chose art as her own form of resistance. Image above: Jacqueline de Jong, Naufrage en Mediterranée (Border Line), 2020. Oil and nepheline gel on canvas, 35 3/8 x 47 1/4 in / 90 x 120 cm. BPS22, Musée d'art de la Province de Hainaut, Belgium. Courtesy the artist’s estate and Ortuzar Projects, New York. © 2024 [...]

Aug 12, 2024

LOVE AND BETRAYAL – The Expressionist Fritz Ascher from New York Private Collections
November 8, 2024 – March 2, 2025
Haus der Graphischen Sammlung, Freiburg, Germany

2024-12-05T14:16:22-05:00August 12th, 2024||Comments Off on LOVE AND BETRAYAL – The Expressionist Fritz Ascher from New York Private Collections
November 8, 2024 – March 2, 2025
Haus der Graphischen Sammlung, Freiburg, Germany

The late Expressionist artist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970) survived two world wars and persecution by the National Socialist regime. A close observer of the horrors of World War I and revolutionary unrest, he turned to Christian spiritual themes, which he radically reinterpreted. In intimate drawings, he dealt with the theme of love and betrayal from 1916 onward, both in his exploration of the crucifixion theme and with the figure of Bajazzo in the tragicomic opera "I Pagliacci." Ascher's strong and unique artistic voice is evident not only in his artwork, but also in his poems. These were written when he was no longer allowed to work under National Socialism because of his Jewish roots and as a representative of modernism, [...]

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