Rachel Stern2020-08-05T22:20:06-04:00June 25th, 2020|Events, Past Events|
Watch the video of this event HERE Lecture featuring Eckhart Gillen, Independent Curator based in Berlin, Germany Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York The lecture tells how the daughter of the Jewish clothing and furniture retailer Moritz Langer leaves her family's Orthodox milieu to study at the Dresden Art Academy. There she meets art student Hans Grundig. With him she joined the German Communist Party in 1926. From now on she wanted to put her art at the service of the working class. After returning from exile in Palestine, she used her art for the newly founded GDR. There she had a career as a professor and as president of the Association [...]
Rachel Stern2020-06-02T16:23:50-04:00May 30th, 2020|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, I hope you and your families are well despite the continuing challenges, both physical and psychological. “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia These are the last impressions of “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” at the Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond. The exhibition is now officially closed, even though the artwork will stay in solitary confinement until the art shippers are back in business. This past week, we celebrated Fritz Ascher, the exhibition in Richmond, and the winners of our competition, with a virtual event. [...]
Rachel Stern2020-07-29T09:13:41-04:00May 27th, 2020|Events, Past Events|
Watch the video of this zoom event HERE Lecture featuring Karen Wilkin, Independent Curator and Critic Moderated by Rachel Stern, Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) first arrived in the US from Munich in 1930, to teach a summer art course at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned twice more, extending his 1932 visit to pursue teaching opportunities. In 1933, he decided to remain in the US, opening the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in 1934. He did not return to Europe until 1949, for an exhibition in France, and to Germany until 1962, for a touring retrospective. Before coming to America, Hofmann had only drawn for 15 years, because of the [...]
Rachel Stern2020-06-23T15:18:55-04:00May 26th, 2020|Events, Past Events|
Watch the event video HERE. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Conversation featuring Dr. Sarah Eckhardt, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, VA and Shaina Larrivee, Director of The Hedda Sterne Foundation in New York Moderated by Rachel Stern, Director of the Fritz Ascher Society in New York Hedda Sterne (1910-2011) was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1910 and came of age as an artist in the midst of the Dada and Surrealist movements in Bucharest and Paris. In 1941 she narrowly escaped the Bucharest Pogrom and was one of the fortunate few who managed to leave Europe for the United States [...]
Rachel Stern2020-12-14T14:35:07-05:00April 24th, 2020|Past Exhibitions|
“The Loner. Clowns in the Art of Fritz Ascher (1893-1970)” Watch the German language video of the opening lecture by Julia Diekmann, Curator at Forum Jacob Pins HERE. Watch a short German language video about the installation of the exhibition HERE. You can order the bilingual (German/English) exhibition catalogue HERE. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the artist's death, Forum Jacob Pins shows around 40 paintings and works on paper by the Expressionist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970). Persecuted by the National Socialists as a “degenerate” artist and as a born Jew, Ascher lived through two world wars, existential social and political unrest, the persecution by the National Socialists and the development of a divided Germany. The exhibition for the [...]
Rachel Stern2023-06-04T15:02:06-04:00April 24th, 2020|Events, Past Events|
One of the signal moments in the narrative of Abraham is his insistent and enthusiastic reception of three strangers. That moment is a beginning point of inspiration for all three Abrahamic traditions as they evolve and develop the details of their respective teachings. On the one hand, welcoming the stranger by remembering “that you were strangers in the land of Egypt” is enjoined upon the ancient Israelites, and on the other, oppressing the stranger is condemned by their prophets. These sentiments will be repeated in the New Testament and the Qur’an and elaborated in the interpretive literatures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Such notions have been seriously challenged on many occasions throughout history—at no time more profoundly than in [...]
Rachel Stern2020-03-26T08:37:32-04:00March 26th, 2020|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, How much has our life changed over the past few days! “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia is closed. Until our online exhibition is up, you can see photos of the installation here. “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia We also invite you to be part of our free online conversations, which we will announce on our website, on Facebook, and on Twitter. “Housebound and Hiding. From Fritz Ascher in 1942 to Ourselves Today in 2020” is the first conversation on Thursday, on March 26th, at 8:00pm EDT, commemorating the 50th anniversary of [...]
Rachel Stern2020-05-27T06:35:07-04:00March 18th, 2020|Events, Past Events|
WATCH THE EVENT HERE Join us as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Fritz Ascher's death by discussing the psychological repercussions of having to go into hiding for a long stretch of time--especially for someone who was almost stereotypically a "sensitive artist." This topic seems particularly relevant to conditions right now, when so many of us are in hiding. Dr. Eva Fogelman is a social psychologist, psychotherapist, author and filmmaker. She is in private practice in New York City and was co-founder and co-director of Psychotherapy with Generations of the Holocaust and Related Traumas at Training Institute for Mental Health, and Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers, ADL (Jewish Foundation for the Righteous), currently co-director Child Development Research (includes International Study of Organized Persecution of [...]
Rachel Stern2020-05-27T06:47:41-04:00March 3rd, 2020|Events, Past Events|
WATCH THE EVENT HERE The University of Richmond Museums and the Fritz Ascher Society present Otherness and Hiding: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, celebrating the closing of the exhibition Fritz Ascher: Expressionist, on view at the Harnett Museum of Art. Keynote speaker is Professor Marion A. Kaplan, NYU. There is also a celebration of the student winners of the Fritz Ascher competition in prose, poetry, or images on paper based on the theme of “Otherness.” The event was opened by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society of Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art, Inc., New York. In her keynote, Marion A. Kaplan, Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University, New York spoke about Hiding: Jewish Life in [...]
Rachel Stern2020-02-06T08:01:15-05:00February 6th, 2020|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” is now on view at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia, until May 24 (link). You can listen to my opening lecture here. “Fritz Ascher, Expressionist” at the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond, Virginia In every venue, different hanging bring out new aspects of single artworks, and unexpected connections between artworks provide new insights. The Harnett Museum of Art is no exception. For the first time, “The Tortured” (“Der Gequälte”) takes up center stage. It is a monumental painting measuring 59 x 79.4 inches. Fritz Ascher created it in the 1920s, as social and racial tensions in [...]
Rachel Stern2020-03-18T20:04:11-04:00January 1st, 2020|Events|
March 23, 2020 12:00-1:30pm ZOOM EVENT ACCESS INFO AFTER TICKET PURCHASE T 212.415.5500 Ori Z. Soltes Symbols of Faith: Art in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Traditions This lavishly illustrated talk will explore how symbols—numbers, colors, geometric forms, gestures, and figures—are used in convergent and divergent ways in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim visual art; how so many of them derive from earlier imagery in pagan antiquity; and how they continue to be useful and relevant in the art of the modern secular world.
Rachel Stern2020-03-03T08:46:09-05:00December 31st, 2019|Events, Past Events|
February 12, 2020 6:00-8:00pm Camp Concert Hall Modlin Center for the Arts 453 Westhampton Way Richmond, VA 23173 Information: 804-289-8276 Panel Discussion Expressionisms: Germany and the United States Among the diverse descriptive labels attached to the art of Fritz Ascher, perhaps none is more evocative and distinct than "expressionist." In the context of visual art, that term has, over the past century and a half, connoted the articulation of strong emotion--through color, brush work, and the aggressive representation of figures and the elements of nature. This discussion will consider ways in which these features, particularly in painting, can explore and have explored embodying emotion and provoking it in the viewer. Also discussed will be the relationships of political identity, the workings of [...]
