Rachel Stern2023-03-28T12:12:00-04:00May 3rd, 2023|Events, Lectures|
Histories of Germany’s Bauhaus art and design school (1919–33) usually position it exclusively as a movement in exile as soon as the Nazis took power in 1933. In fact, the vast majority of its members remained and embraced Nazism, survived it, or became its victims. In this talk, art historian Elizabeth Otto scrutinizes traces of the work and lives of Bauhäusler who, through their imprisonment and often deaths in the concentration-camp system, have largely been lost to the history of the Bauhaus movement. Using archival sources—often scant materials preserved by family members and friends, including documents, photographs, and private memoirs—she reconstructs aspects of these artists’ work and lives and considers how to write the histories that Nazi violence has taken [...]
Rachel Stern2023-03-27T19:19:16-04:00April 17th, 2023|Events, Lectures|
In honor of Yom HaShoah, this talk focuses on three Israeli and three American familiar and unfamiliar artists working in very diverse styles and not typically thought of as focusing on the Holocaust. Each of them, however, has offered powerful reflections on the defining catastrophe of the twentieth century. Barnett Newman, the foremost verbal spokesman for the chromatic side of the abstract expressionist movement redefining American painting in the early 1950s, offers an unexpectedly intense reflection on the question of theodicy. Mordecai Ardon, in the process of assuming leadership of the Bezalel school in Jerusalem at around the same time, balances between abstraction and figuration in depicting the Nazi-engendered chaos. Ygal Tumarkin’s sculpture turns Holocaust chaos into upside-down order [...]
Rachel Stern2023-03-15T14:04:18-04:00March 15th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
The program features a talk by Lembersky’s granddaughter, Yelena Lembersky, co-author of the recent and highly acclaimed memoir, Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour: Memories of Soviet Russia. Yelena will be introduced by Georgetown University professor, Ori Z Soltes, who has known her for many years and has written extensively on the work of Felix Lembersky. “We are merely honest people and see what is good and bad, and we cannot be confused.” – Felix Lembersky, Leningrad, the Soviet Union, 1960 Image above: Felix Lembersky, At the Train Station, ca 1960-64. © Felix Lembersky estate Felix Lembersky (1913-1970) was a Soviet Jewish painter, teacher, theater sets designer, and an organizer of artistic groups in Leningrad and [...]
Rachel Stern2023-02-23T08:11:27-05:00February 23rd, 2023|Newsletter|
Have we got exciting events for you! Hear about the influential British photographer Dorothy Bohm, now aged 98, from her daughter: Wednesday, March 1 12:00 pm EST / 17:00 Uhr GMT DOROTHY BOHM (B. 1924): A WORLD OBSERVED Lecture by Monica Bohm-Duchen ZOOM EVENT REGISTRATION Dorothy Bohm, Haifa, Israel, 1959. © Dorothy Bohm Archive London-based art historian Monica Bohm-Duchen will give her personal insights into the life and work of her mother, photographer Dorothy Bohm, who as a girl of fourteen found sanctuary from Nazi Europe in the UK, and in due course established herself as one of the leading figures in post-war British photography. Dorothy Bohm was born Dorothea Israelit [...]
Rachel Stern2023-02-15T19:21:41-05:00February 15th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Inspired by a visit to his birth country in the 1990s, American artist Philip Orenstein (b. 1938) created seven murals about the French complicity in the persecution of Jews in France during World War II. At that time, the French government had not admitted it had taken part in the persecution. The murals have been shown in various galleries and museums in the United States. In 1999, William Zimmer wrote in the New York Times, “Mr. Orenstein’s method involves combining poignancy with the determination that the viewers not miss the story. To this end, Mr. Orenstein skillfully, and wittily, employs the look of today’s splashy graffiti.” The works have not yet been shown in France. Born in Paris, France, in 1938, [...]
Rachel Stern2023-02-06T07:18:23-05:00February 1st, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
The Kunstmuseum Basel’s department of classic modernism houses one of the most prestigious collections of its kind. It was in fact assembled at a comparatively late date. In the summer of 1939 — shortly before the outbreak of World War II — Georg Schmidt (1896–1966), the museum’s director at the time, managed to acquire twenty-one avant-garde masterpieces all at once. The works were among those denounced in 1937 by Nazi cultural policy as “degenerate” and forcibly removed from German museums. The Third Reich’s Ministry of Propaganda correctly assumed that a portion of such works would find buyers abroad and bring in foreign currency. In this way certain artworks deemed “internationally exploitable” reached the art market via various channels. [...]
Rachel Stern2023-02-01T06:15:59-05:00January 25th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
In honor of UN Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hilary Helstein, director of the award-winning documentary "As Seen Through These Eyes" spoke with Rachel Stern, director and CEO of the Fritz Ascher Society New York, about the making of her documentary. As poet Maya Angelou narrates this powerful documentary, she reveals the story of a brave group of people who fought Hitler with the only weapons they had: charcoal, pencil stubs, shreds of paper and memories etched in their minds. These artists took their fate into their own hands to make a compelling statement about the human spirit, enduring against unimaginable odds. Featuring interviews with Simon Wiesenthal as he talks about his art, never before appearing in a film, [...]
Rachel Stern2023-02-26T09:25:37-05:00January 11th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Erna Pinner, Rosy Lilienfeld, Amalie Seckbach, and Ruth Cahn were among the first women artists in Frankfurt to enjoy professional success. Throughout the Roaring Twenties, these four Jewish women left their mark on Frankfurt’s art scene, published and exhibited internationally, cultivated a cosmopolitan lifestyle, and competed with their male colleagues. When the National Socialists seized power, their careers came to an abrupt end. From then on, they were persecuted as Jews and their works ostracized; later, after the end of World War II, they were largely forgotten. Now, “Back into the Light” is at long last bringing them back to the public eye. The departure point is an article by art historian Sascha Schwabacher, published May 1935 [...]
Rachel Stern2022-11-02T14:42:41-04:00November 2nd, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Fred Stein lived through some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century. He escaped Nazi Germany; he mingled with Chagall and Brecht in Paris; and he debated with Einstein in New York. He was a scholar, a refugee, and an idealist. But above all, he was a photographer. An early innovator of hand-held street photography in 1930s France and 1940s New York, his images are sophisticated, beautiful, and touching; his portraits include some of the most important people of the mid-20th century, like Albert Einstein. Image above: Fred Stein, Americans All, New York 1943 © Fred Stein Archive Fred Stein, Paris Evening, Paris 1934 © Fred Stein Archive [...]
Rachel Stern2022-09-28T14:35:06-04:00September 28th, 2022|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
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: [...]
Rachel Stern2022-04-28T09:33:15-04:00April 26th, 2022|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Thursday is Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day. In January, we invited you to actively commemorate victims of National Socialism by contributing to the Arolsen Archive’s digital memorial #EVERYNAMECOUNTS. I know that some of you found the project so meaningful that you are still donating your time to it. Right now, you can choose to enter data of documents from Buchenwald, Flossenbürg or Dachau: PARTICIPATE HERE This Thursday, I invite all to donate time to help build this important digital memorial. On our website you find further information about the project and our partnership with the Arolsen Archive: https://fritzaschersociety.org/digifas/everynamecounts/ And please share your experience with us! In May, we turn to the experience of [...]
Rachel Stern2022-05-02T14:41:57-04:00April 14th, 2022|Events, Past Events|
Note: Attendees must provide proof of vaccination (including booster, if eligible) and advance Eventbrite registration. Presented by BFA Visual & Critical Studies, the SVA Honors Program, and The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized, and Banned Art. In honor of The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art's virtual exhibition “Identity, Art and Migration,” this panel discussion probes historical and all-too contemporary fault lines of persecution, migration, intolerance, cultural complexity and art. Historians, curators and artists come together to discuss the life and work of artists who were persecuted by the German Nazi regime and came to the US during the first half of the 20th century, while also hearing from living artists who are facing the challenge of relocation [...]
