Rachel Stern2024-04-02T18:31:46-04:00March 28th, 2024|Newsletter|
Finally it's spring, and with it comes the energy of renewal and hope. At the Fritz Ascher Society, we have installed a new system to register for events. Hoping it will work flawlessly, I ask you to be kind and patient if it doesn't. Next week, we will hear National Jewish Book Award winner Benjamin Balint in conversation with Georgetown University Professor Ori Z Soltes: WEDNESDAY, April 3 ONLINE 12:00 PM EDT BRUNO SCHULZ (1892-1942): An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History REGISTER FOR THIS ONLINE EVENT HERE Bruno Schulz, ‘The Enchanted Town II,’ 1920-1922. Bruno Schulz is renowned as a master of twentieth-century imaginative fiction. Isaac Bashevis Singer called him “one [...]
Rachel Stern2024-03-05T11:31:35-05:00March 1st, 2024|Newsletter|
Happy March! This month, we are looking forward to three fabulous events. Please join us on March 18 at Fordham University in New York to celebrate the book launch of Welcoming the Stranger. Abrahamic Traditions and Contemporary Implications, or join us via livestream. Online, we'll learn about two artists well respected in their time, and recently re-discovered. Please safe March 27, 12:00pm ET for an unbelievable art mystery that is a developing story. Stay tuned! Next week, we'll focus on Rahel Szalit, who will be recognized in a forthcoming book publication. Hear author Kerry Wallach: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 ONLINE 12:00 PM EST ”TRACES OF A JEWISH ARTIST: THE LOST LIFE AND WORK OF RAHEL SZALIT (1888-1942) REGISTER [...]
Rachel Stern2024-02-14T15:19:09-05:00February 1st, 2024|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
In this program Georgetown University professor and author, Ori Z Soltes, explores Marc Klionsky's life and work, in part through conversation with his daughter, the scholar and artist, Nadia Klionsky. Image above: Marc Klionsky, Dizzie Gillespie: The Man and his Trumpet, 1988. Oil on canvas, 52 x 66 inches. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. This exciting program features the paintings of Marc Klionsky (1927–2017). Born in the Soviet Union, Klionsky managed to navigate what has been called a “two-world condition”—creating the particularized Soviet Socialist Realist work that was acceptable to the Stalinist and post-Stalinist State while allowing his soul to reveal itself in work that only a very few trusted viewers might see. As [...]
Rachel Stern2024-02-27T06:14:25-05:00February 1st, 2024|Newsletter|
Is this the month of love, just because Valentine's Day is on the 14th? Let's just make it about love - love for those who are marginalized and persecuted, and those who have to leave their home to save their lives, and find a new home, some even multiple times during their lifetime. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14 ONLINE 12:00 PM EST ”THE ART OF MARC KLIONSKY: Shaping a Three-World Condition from Minsk to New York" REGISTER FOR THIS ONLINE EVENT HERE In this event Georgetown University professor and author, Ori Z Soltes, will explore the life and work of Marc Klionsky (1927–2017), in part through conversation with his daughter, the scholar and artist, Nadia Klionsky. [...]
Rachel Stern2024-01-24T06:51:51-05:00January 12th, 2024|Newsletter|
We hope that 2024 started well for you. This is our 10th anniversary year, and we are planning many stimulating and thought provoking events and programs, and even two publications to celebrate this milestone. On Friday, January 27, is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army in 1945. We commemorate this date as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Leading up to that day, we invite you to once again participate in #EVERYNAMECOUNTS. DATAENTRY CHALLENGE #EVERYNAMECOUNTS The Arolsen Archives are working on the world’s most comprehensive online archive of the people who were persecuted and murdered by the National Socialists. Join us for the third year in recording names and paths [...]
Rachel Stern2024-01-24T06:16:58-05:00December 22nd, 2023|Newsletter|
In 1901, the eight-year-old German-Jewish artist Fritz Ascher (Berlin, 1893-1970) drew mother and son negotiating the purchase of a Christmas tree. This is the first known artwork by the artist, which he sketched in graphite and then executed in ink on paper. Fritz Ascher, Winter Scene, 1901. Graphite and black ink on paper, 13.8 x 10.4 inches. Copyright Bianca Stock Find out more about Fritz Ascher in our short biographical film: WATCH "FRITZ ASCHER, EXPRESSIONIST (1893-1970)" Some years later, around 1913, Fritz Ascher draws a conductor on the verso of that same sheet of paper. The caricature shows Ascher’s tenderness and admiration: music, especially Beethoven’s music, accompanied him wherever [...]
Rachel Stern2024-01-24T05:48:25-05:00November 28th, 2023|Newsletter|
#GivingTuesday is here — a 24-hour period of global giving to non-profits! You know what we do, and you know how clear the importance of fact-based historical context has become. And we’ll step up our work telling untold stories of marginalized artists persecuted by the German regime 1933-1945 — a time of societal and political challenges that very much resonates with today’s challenges. Start this day of giving by making your donation to support our virtual programs that you enjoy! DONATE TODAY Fleeing Nazi persecution, he came to Australia. Not as a free man like the photographer Horst Eisfelder, but as a British deportee on the Dunera, heading for the internment camps at Hay in New [...]
Rachel Stern2023-11-01T09:07:44-04:00November 1st, 2023|Newsletter|
This year, we commemorate the German pogroms of November 9, 1938 with a global event - please notice the different event time. Coming together from Hong Kong, Melbourne and New York, we celebrate the photographs of Horst Eisfelder, who passed on this year: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 8 6:00 PM EASTERN STANDARD TIME THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9 7:00 AM Hong Kong Time / 8:00 AM Melbourne Time ”HORST EISFELDER (1925-2023): DIASPORIC LIFE IN SHANGHAI’S STATE OF EXCEPTION” REGISTER FOR THIS ZOOM EVENT HERE Horst Eisfelder. Bake staff at Café Louis with Erwin Eisfelder in center, circa 1941, Shanghai, China. Black and white photograph. Copyright: Horst Eisfelder estate After fleeing Berlin a few weeks before Kristallnacht and arriving [...]
Rachel Stern2023-11-15T13:37:29-05:00October 23rd, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
In this talk, Arie Hartog, director of the Gerhard-Marcks-Haus in Bremen, Germany, draws attention to a sculptor who contradicts the common narrative of modern art in the 20th century. Péri began as a constructivist and ended as a figurative artist. Yet he was not an academic traditional sculptor. Introductory remarks by Lilla Farkas, Cultural attaché at the Liszt Institute of the Consulate General of Hungary in New York. Image above: Peter László Péri, Sadness, 1938–1945, pigmented and painted concrete, 52 × 40 × 60 cm. Photo: Jake Wallters © Peter László Péri Estate, London Peter László Péri was born Ladislas Weisz in Budapest in 1889. Peri became the Hungarianized family name in 1918. In 1919, he [...]
Rachel Stern2023-11-08T20:46:18-05:00October 9th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Lecture by Dr Noit Banai and Dr Anna Hirsh, followed by Q&A with Rodney Eisfelder, son of Horst Eisfelder. Image above: Horst Eisfelder. Street scene in the Shanghai Ghetto, Shanghai, China, circa 1945. Black and white photograph. Copyright: Horst Eisfelder estate After fleeing Berlin a few weeks before Kristallnacht and arriving in Shanghai with his family in late November 1938, Horst Eisfelder (1925-2023) became one of the most prolific photographers of the ‘Shanghai Ghetto’ before emigrating to Australia in May 1947. Embedded within the history and theory of photography, this presentation considers his images of the city of Shanghai as well as the Designated Area for Stateless Refugees as vital representations through which to understand [...]
Rachel Stern2023-10-09T15:01:13-04:00October 4th, 2023|Newsletter|
We have a busy month ahead: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11 ONLINE 12:00 pm EST / 18:00 Uhr CET ”SAMSON SCHAMES: FRAGMENTS OF EXILE” REGISTER FOR THIS ZOOM EVENT HERE Samson Schames, Blowing the Shofar, c. 1956. Glass tiles on glass, 56 x 71 cm. Jewish Museum Frankfurt 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. After the National [...]
Rachel Stern2023-10-25T13:56:11-04:00September 29th, 2023|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Eva Zeisel (born Éva Amália Striker, Budapest 1906 –2011 New City, New York) was one of the most important designers of the 20th century. She believed that beautiful things make people happy. Although she was known for her ceramic tableware, she also designed in glass, wood, plastic and metal. Her designs are in major museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum and MoMA, where she had the first one woman show in 1946. Lecture by Eva’s daughter Jean Richards. Image above: Eva Zeisel, Red Wing Pottery pieces from "Town and Country" collection. Glazed earthenware, ca. 1945. CC BY 4.0 Photograph of a young Eva Zeisel. © Eva [...]
