Rachel Stern2025-02-12T07:45:33-05:00February 12th, 2025|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, February is a busy month with many interesting events in our orbit, starting with two film screenings at the JCC Manhattan, continuing with a virtual conversation with author Melvin Bukiet and a presentation of Fritz Ascher's art, and two exhibitions, of which one is closing in early March in Germany, and one just opened in Portland, Oregon. Please join us at the JCC Manhattan for two important film screenings: Tuesday, February 4, 7:00PM ET The Return from the Other Planet, 2023 Screening followed by Q+A with director Assaf Lapid Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, New York 20% off tickets with code fritz2025 Tuesday, February 11, [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-27T07:31:46-05:00January 20th, 2025|Events, Past Events|
Please join us for the opening event! Survival and Intimations of Immortality: The Art of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana is a unique and powerful exhibition that explores the role of art and creativity, bringing the past into the present by focusing on three generations of artists from the same family. Alice Lok Cahana (1929-2017) was a Holocaust survivor who pledged she would become an artist if she survived the war. Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, Alice’s oldest son, is a poet and survivor of a major stroke. Kitra Cahana, Ronnie’s daughter, is a filmmaker and photographer. This exhibition reveals how the tragedy of the Holocaust impacted multiple generations of a family and how each member transformed [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-09T14:06:25-05:00January 2nd, 2025|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Happy 2025! An eventful month lies ahead. First of all, I am very excited to announce that you now can experience our website in multiple languages - try it out: https://fritzaschersociety.org/. Here at the Fritz Ascher Society, we are starting the year with two virtual talks that are connected to exhibitions - one in London and one here in New York: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 12:00PM EST FRED KORMIS (1894-1986)– SCULPTING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY PRESENTATION BY BARBARA WARNOCK, LONDON (ENGLAND) REGISTER HERE Fred Kormis, Two Heads, c. 1930s © Wiener Holocaust Library Collections Sculptor and printmaker Fred Kormis (1894-1986) was born into an Austrian and German-Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany, was wounded fighting [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-09T13:35:50-05:00December 24th, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, We wish you Happy Holidays with Mayer Kirshenblatt's painting Hanukkah, in which he remembers celebrating the holiday with his family in Opatów (Apt) in the 1920s. "This is Hanukkah at home with my father, mother, and brothers. We lit the candles and sang Maoz tsur (Rock of Ages). I painted a few notes to indicate that we were singing. It was a special day for us because we were let out of school early. Father gave me Hanukkah gelt, a few pennies for a present, in honor of the holiday. Mother cooked latkes, potato pancakes, which are very delicious. She grated raw potatoes, added eggs, and flour and fried the pancakes in shmalts, [...]
Rachel Stern2025-01-22T13:31:12-05:00December 22nd, 2024|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
Berthe Weill was a trailblazing art dealer who exhibited works by emerging artists in her Parisian gallery from 1901 to 1941. Even though many of them went on to become key avant-garde figures, Weill’s role has been omitted from most historical accounts of 20th-century modernism. In this presentation, Lynn Gumpert, a co-curator of the first exhibition on Weill, provides an overview of this remarkable woman. Image above: Amedeo Modigliani, Fille rousse (Girl with red hair), c. 1915. Oil on canvas, 16 x 14 3/8 in. (40.5 x 36.5 cm). Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. Jean Walter and Paul Guillame Collection, 1960.46 © Photo: Musée de l’Orangerie / Sophie Crépy Passionate and outspoken, Weill was the [...]
Rachel Stern2024-12-12T19:30:39-05:00November 26th, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, What a whirlwind of a month this was, with the opening of the important new Fritz Ascher exhibition, "Love and Betrayal - The Expressionist Fritz Ascher from New York Private Collections" at the House of the Graphic Collection, Augustinermuseum in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany). This is the first exhibition that focusses on works on paper created by Fritz Ascher before 1933. In this most immediate and intimate medium, we discover the cheerful and thoughtful artist who was part of the avant-garde in what was then the most exciting cultural city in the world and who spontaneously recorded his thoughts, ideas and experiences on paper, or worked on pictorial themes or compositions. The exhibition is on view [...]
Rachel Stern2025-02-04T06:47:41-05:00November 22nd, 2024|Exhibitions|
Survival and Intimations of Immortality: The Art of Alice Lok Cahana, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, and Kitra Cahana is a unique and powerful exhibition that explores the role of art and creativity, bringing the past into the present by focusing on three generations of artists from the same family. Alice Lok Cahana (1929-2017) was a Holocaust survivor who pledged she would become an artist if she survived the war. Rabbi Ronnie Cahana, Alice’s oldest son, is a poet and survivor of a major stroke. Kitra Cahana, Ronnie’s daughter, is a filmmaker and photographer. This exhibition reveals how the tragedy of the Holocaust impacted multiple generations of a family and how each member transformed the destructive trauma of the Shoah into [...]
Rachel Stern2024-12-12T19:00:08-05:00October 29th, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Breathtaking foliage, crisp weather and the change of clocks are the messengers of fall - a fall that brings an important election in the United States - please vote, everyone! - and the opening of the Fritz Ascher exhibition in Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany. If you can, please join me there! And don't miss the online presentation of this very little known woman artist: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20 ONLINE FELKA PLATEK - ARTIST AND COMPANION OF THE PAINTER FELIX NUSSBAUM Presentation by Anne Sibylle Schwetter REGISTRATION FOR ONLINE EVENT Felka Platek, Self-portrait in front of an open window, around 1940. Gouache on drawing paper, 65 x 49.7 cm. Felix-Nussbaum-Haus [...]
Rachel Stern2024-12-12T18:26:36-05:00October 1st, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, As we prepare to welcome the Jewish New Year on Wednesday night, we reflect on the past while looking ahead with hope and purpose. Thank you for being part of our community, and for supporting our work. In the coming year, we reaffirm our commitment to educate, engage and inspire with engaging and meaningful virtual and in-person events and exhibitions about artists, who were suppressed and persecuted by the German Nazi regime. Looking back 100 years, allows us to learn and think about highly relevant topics. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9 ONLINE OTTO ANTOINE (1865-1951): "THE PAINTER OF BERLIN" BETWEEN COMPLIANCE AND DEFIANCE Presentation by KATHLEEN LANGONE REGISTRATION FOR ONLINE EVENT [...]
Rachel Stern2024-12-12T18:10:34-05:00September 4th, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, Thank you for your generous donations over the summer, which help ensure our virtual programming this fall. Happy September! This month we feature memory painter Mayer Kirshenblatt, who recreated the Polish town of his youth in paintings and words. We also honor the Dutch painter and sculptor Jaqueline de Jong, who died only recently. Her flight to Switzerland in infancy determined her outlook on life and her art. And Ori Z Soltes and I will sit down for an in-person book talk about "Welcoming the Stranger" at George Washington University in Washington, DC: TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 ONLINE PAINTED MEMORIES OF A JEWISH CHILDHOOD IN POLAND BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST Presentation by [...]
Rachel Stern2024-09-25T13:42:20-04:00September 1st, 2024|Events, Lectures, Past Events|
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 [...]
Rachel Stern2024-08-13T08:58:22-04:00July 31st, 2024|Newsletter|
Dear Friends, With the Olympic Games going on, I can't resist to share with you Fritz Ascher's drawing of two muscular male nudes wrestling. The drawing will be on view for the first time in the exhibition "Love and Betrayal. The Expressionist Fritz Ascher in New York Private Collections," which will open on November 8th at Haus der Graphischen Sammlung in Freiburg (Germany). Fritz Ascher, Two Male Nudes Wrestling, ca. 1916. Graphite and charcoal on paper, 29 x 22,8 cm. Private Collection This sheet is one of several works in which the artist depicts fighters around 1916. As a sport, wrestling experienced its Golden Age in Germany and Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. This [...]