Jewish Artist Archives - Fritz Ascher Society

Oct 11, 2023

Samson Schames: Fragments of Exile
Lecture by Annika Friedman, Frankfurt

Rachel Stern2023-08-23T21:25:19-04:00October 11th, 2023|Events, Lectures|Comments Off on Samson Schames: Fragments of Exile
Lecture by Annika Friedman, Frankfurt

This event is sponsored by Ilona Oltuski in memory of Ruth Drory. Samson Schames (1898-1967) came from a long-established Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main. With the support of his uncle, renowned gallery owner Ludwig Schames, he made his way into the 1920s art scene and began his training as a painter, graphic artist, and stage designer. Schames’ designs, drawings, and oil paintings from the period up to 1933 testify to his deep connection to Frankfurt and her landscapes. Image above: Samson Schames, Blowing the Shofar, c. 1956. Glass tiles on glass, 56 x 71 cm. Jewish Museum Frankfurt REGISTER HERE FOR ONLINE EVENT Samson Schames, Opernplatz Frankfurt, 1930. Jewish Museum Frankfurt [...]

Sep 27, 2023

Art for the Millions:
American Culture and Politics in the 1930s
Lecture by Allison Rudnick, New York

Rachel Stern2023-09-01T19:06:55-04:00September 27th, 2023|Events, Lectures|Comments Off on Art for the Millions:
American Culture and Politics in the 1930s
Lecture by Allison Rudnick, New York

The 1930s was a decade of political and social upheaval in the United States, and the art and visual culture of the time reflected the unsettled environment. Americans searched for their cultural identity during the Great Depression, a period marked by divisive politics, threats to democracy, and intensified social activism, including a powerful labor movement. The exhibition with the same title, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York until December 10, 2023, features more than 100 works from the collection and several lenders, and explores how artists expressed political messages and ideologies through a range of media, from paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs to film, dance, decorative arts, fashion, and ephemera. Highlights include paintings by Georgia [...]

Sep 13, 2023

From Émigré to Englishman: Fred Uhlman, ‘Painter of Dreams’
Lecture by Dr. Nicola Baird, London

Rachel Stern2023-09-13T13:30:35-04:00September 13th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on From Émigré to Englishman: Fred Uhlman, ‘Painter of Dreams’
Lecture by Dr. Nicola Baird, London

Manfred [Fred] Uhlman was born on 19th January 1901 in Stuttgart, Germany, the eldest child of Ludwig Uhlman (1869–c.1943), a textile merchant, and his wife, Johanna Grombacher (1879–c.1943), both of whom were later to perish at Theresienstadt concentration camp. He studied law at the Universities of Freiburg, Munich, and Tübingen, graduating with a doctorate in 1923. In 1927 he joined the Social Democrat Party, becoming its official legal representative in 1932. Image above: Fred Uhlman, Still Life with African Figures, oil on canvas, Hatton Gallery, © the artist's estate / Bridgeman Images. Photo credit: Hatton Gallery In March 1933, after a warning that his arrest was imminent because of his political affiliations, he fled [...]

Dec 7, 2022

The Shape and Color of Survival.
Samuel Bak (born Vilnius, Lithuania, 1933)
Lecture by Ori Z Soltes, PhD

Rachel Stern2022-12-07T18:53:36-05:00December 7th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on The Shape and Color of Survival.
Samuel Bak (born Vilnius, Lithuania, 1933)
Lecture by Ori Z Soltes, PhD

Image above: Samuel Bak, Warsaw Excavation, 2007. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. Image Courtesy Pucker Gallery © Samuel Bak Samuel Bak was 6 years old when the Nazis began ending his childhood, as the war that they engendered would soon extend to his native Vilnius. The number “6” became an important element in his art, since it is also the number of the Commandment with which God enjoins us not to commit murder, for which the Holocaust represented such a profound abrogation. His father smuggled him out of the ghetto in the sack that he was still permitted to use to gather firewood—and was subsequently murdered by the regime. By then Bak himself had already [...]

Oct 3, 2022

From Generation to Generation:
The Upbringing and Art of
Mimi Gross (born 1940, New York)

Rachel Stern2022-10-03T13:54:27-04:00October 3rd, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on From Generation to Generation:
The Upbringing and Art of
Mimi Gross (born 1940, New York)

Mimi Gross is the daughter of well-known sculptor Chaim Gross (1902–1991). She grew up to become an artist and one obvious question one might ask is how her work was influenced by and/or diverged from her father's work. But both Chaim and his wife Renee were immigrants--so New York City-born Mimi grew up as an American in an immigrant household, which might raise the question: were there issues derived from the particulars of her growing up that affected her and her art--and might one imagine the curve of her life as different in a non-immigrant context, or a context experienced at a different time in American and world history? These and other questions are discussed in a dialogue between Mimi Gross and [...]

Sep 28, 2022

The Enduring Legacy of
Chaim Gross (1902-1991)
With Daughter Mimi Gross and Sasha Davis

Rachel Stern2022-09-28T14:35:06-04:00September 28th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on The Enduring Legacy of
Chaim Gross (1902-1991)
With Daughter Mimi Gross and Sasha Davis

Chaim Gross (1902-1991) fled Europe as a teenager after experiencing the violence of World War I and the disruption of his artistic training due to anti-Semitic policies. He arrived in New York City in 1921 and quickly found a welcoming environment among fellow artists, many of whom were also immigrants, at the Educational Alliance Art School. Despite difficult beginnings, Gross rose to become one of America’s leading twentieth-century sculptors and a key proponent of the direct carving movement. Although a small number of his works referenced his horrific early experiences and the later murder of family members in the Holocaust, his themes were largely joyful, showing mothers at play or acrobats and dancers. Image above: [...]

Sep 7, 2022

Behind the Bronze.
The Sculptor Maurice Blik (born 1939 Amsterdam)
Featuring Maurice Blik and Julian Freeman (both London, UK)

Rachel Stern2022-09-07T15:52:51-04:00September 7th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Behind the Bronze.
The Sculptor Maurice Blik (born 1939 Amsterdam)
Featuring Maurice Blik and Julian Freeman (both London, UK)

Maurice Blik has lived in England since being liberated from Bergen Belsen concentration camp, where he was taken as a small child from his birthplace, Amsterdam. The ability to come to terms with this experience and to confront the face of humanity that he has witnessed, stayed silent in his life for some 40 years. It finally found a voice in the passionate sculptures which began to emerge in the late 1970s when he created a series of horses’ heads. These noble and benevolent creatures posses an energy and a life force that seem just barely harnessed long enough to take their shape in the clay itself. Later he progressed to more figurative work in which the irrepressible joy [...]

Aug 3, 2022

Ludwig and Else Meidner.
An Artist Couple Exiled in London
Lecture by Erik Riedel, Frankfurt/Main (Germany)

Rachel Stern2022-08-03T14:52:23-04:00August 3rd, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Ludwig and Else Meidner.
An Artist Couple Exiled in London
Lecture by Erik Riedel, Frankfurt/Main (Germany)

When Ludwig and Else Meidner met in 1925, he was already an established artist well-known for his so-called Apocalyptic Landscapes. Although Else started as Ludwig’s student, she developed a distinct independent style and he always praised her art as more refined than his own “coarse” works. As Else Meidner slowly gained recognition in Berlin art circles, her career was abruptly cut short by the Nazi-regime in 1933. She moved to Cologne with her husband in 1935; and they emigrated to England in 1939 only a few weeks before the war started. In London both lived largely unnoticed by the English art scene. But while Ludwig frustratedly returned to Germany, she decided to stay in England. Their complicated relationship developed from [...]

Jul 26, 2022

Death and Immortality:
The Gentle Power of Hans von Trotha’s “Pollak’s Arm”
Hans von Trotha and Ori Z Soltes in conversation

Rachel Stern2022-08-25T13:01:20-04:00July 26th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Death and Immortality:
The Gentle Power of Hans von Trotha’s “Pollak’s Arm”
Hans von Trotha and Ori Z Soltes in conversation

Ludwig Pollak (Prague 1868-1943 Auschwitz) was an extraordinary connoisseur of antiquities--an Austro-Hungarian Jew whose path into academia was impeded by his religion, but who settled in Rome, where he carved out a unique place for himself as an expert in recognizing, understanding, and organizing great works of art. It was he who shaped and articulated the magnificent collections of JP Morgan. Of perhaps even greater consequence, his astute eye saw a sculpted fragment of an arm in a flea market that, he deduced, was the limb missing from the spectacular Hellenistic-Roman sculptural group known as Laocoon. He gifted that arm fragment to the Vatican so that it might complete the work that occupied an important place within [...]

Jul 6, 2022

Judith and Gerson Leiber.
A Life of Beauty, Love and Inspiration
Lecture by Ann Fristoe Stewart

Rachel Stern2022-07-06T13:52:02-04:00July 6th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Judith and Gerson Leiber.
A Life of Beauty, Love and Inspiration
Lecture by Ann Fristoe Stewart

“If Romeo and Juliet had lived into their 90s, they would have been Judy and Gerson.” That’s how Jeffrey Sussman described Judith and Gerson Leiber. Join us as Ann Fristoe Stewart gives a unique insight into the astonishing story of famed handbag designer Judith Leiber, a survivor of Hitler’s Europe who came to America and took the fashion accessory industry by storm, and of highly accomplished and creative artist Gerson Leiber, and speaks about the creativity, humanity, the love and the genius of Judith and Gerson Leiber. Image above: Judith and Gerson Leiber © The Leiber Collection Judith Leiber, Peacock-Shaped Minaudiére with Multicolor Crystal Rhinestones and Black Onyx & Sodalite Stone Details, 2004. Photo credit: Gary Mamay © The Leiber [...]

Jun 22, 2022

Charlotte. Animated Film about
German-Jewish Artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943)
Producer Julia Rosenberg
in conversation with Ori Z Soltes

Rachel Stern2022-06-22T15:01:42-04:00June 22nd, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Charlotte. Animated Film about
German-Jewish Artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943)
Producer Julia Rosenberg
in conversation with Ori Z Soltes

Join us as the film's producer, Julia Rosenberg, speaks with Ori Z Soltes from Georgetown University in Washington DC about her motivation, thoughts and decisions that went into the creation of her newly released animated film "Charlotte." Moderated by Rachel Stern, Executive Director of the Fritz Ascher Society. Image above: Film poster "Charlotte" "Charlotte" is an animated drama that tells the true story of Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943), a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. But [...]

Jun 1, 2022

Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943):
A Life Before Auschwitz
Lecture by Monica Bohm-Duchen, London (UK)

Rachel Stern2022-06-07T11:49:44-04:00June 1st, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|Comments Off on Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943):
A Life Before Auschwitz
Lecture by Monica Bohm-Duchen, London (UK)

Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943), was a hugely talented Berlin-born artist who was murdered at Auschwitz, four months pregnant, at the age of twenty-six. Her main body of work, a sequence of nearly 800 gouache images entitled Leben? oder Theater? (Life? or Theatre?), and created while seeking refuge in the South of France, is an ambitious fictive autobiography which deploys both images and text, and a wide range of musical, literary and cinematic references. The narrative, informed by Salomon's experiences as a cultured, and assimilated German Jewish woman, depicts a life lived in the shadow of Nazi persecution and a family history of suicide, but also reveals moments of intense happiness and hope. Challenging the artistic conventions of Salomon’s time, it remains [...]