Role of America's Jewish artists assessed
Steve Dufour
By Frederick M. Winship
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
New York, NY, Jul. 24 (UPI) -- The contribution of Jewish artists to
U.S. art during the era of political, social and intellectual ferment
that marked the first half of the 20th century is summed up in a major
centennial exhibition at The Jewish Museum that includes 70 works by
46 artists from the museum's permanent collection.
Paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints and some outstanding
photographs tell a story of leadership in artistic trends by such
artists as Adolph Gottlieb, Jacques Lipchitz, Elie Nadelman, Ben
Shahn, Moses and Raphael Soyer, Max Weber, William Gropper, Mark
Rothko and Larry Rivers. Some were born in the United States and
others immigrated to America, bringing European avant-garde styles
with them.
What is most interesting about the show, "My America: Art from the
Jewish Museum Collection, 1900-1955," is its illustration of how some
Jewish artists used modernism in art to break away from their cultural
and religious backgrounds while others used artistic innovations to
embrace their ethnic traditions including social activism.
In the Great Depression period especially, Jewish artists fervently
believed art could bring about social change, and "Striving for Social
Justice" is one of the five thematic sections into which the show is
divided. Social realism in U.S. art focused on the abrasive aspects of
urban life in sharp contrast to the idealized view of rural American
society taken by the popular Regionalist painters of the period.
Works by the Soyers, Shahn, Gropper and other artists in the show
reflect the tough social conditions of a country going through
difficult times that inspired U.S. Jewish artists to fight for the
rights of the unemployed and help to unionize them. They also espoused
the civil-rights movement on behalf of black Americans as well as the
victims of Fascism in Europe long before the Holocaust.
No painting in the show assesses the seriousness of young Jewish
intellectuals more succinctly than Raphael Soyer's 1954 "Seated
Couple." It depicts a frowning young man leaning forward tensely, his
hands extended in a rigid gesture, and a wistful young woman leaning
into him for support while looking directly and challengingly at the
viewer. It is a masterpiece, a great American portrait too seldom
exhibited.
Poor artists, many of them Jewish, were put to work for a minimal
living wage by the 1930s federal arts project of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, and some of the resulting
art is probably represented in the show though not labeled as WPA art.
Of the period is Ben-Zion's oil, "Jacob Wrestling with the Angel," a
whirl of twisted figures that is one of the earliest abstractions in
the show.
A few U.S. Jewish artists became part of modern art movements in
Europe, notably Albert Bloch, the only American member of the German
Blaue Reiter group of artists. He is represented by a 1941 painting
titled "March of the Clowns," showing jesters and cartoon characters
Popeye, Olive Oyl and Krazy Kat bearing Adolf Hitler aloft on a
swastika-shaped pike.
Other eye-catching works are Theresa Bernstein's "The Waiting Room --
Employment Office," a warmly painted 1917 postscript to the Ashcan
School of American art depicting a common Jewish immigrant experience,
and the U.S.-born Joseph Epstein's chalk drawings, "The
Revolutionaries," showing a group of earnest young people listening to
an old Socialist rabble rouser.
Another arresting work is Philip Evergood's painting of a Ku Klux Klan
lynching ironically titled "The Hundredth Psalm" after the Biblical
appeal for mercy. William Gropper's painting, "John Reed Club," is
equally political, showing a ranting right-wing U.S. senator. Gropper
himself was called before the House Committee on Un-American
activities in 1953 on suspicion of being a Communist.
Among the sculptures displayed are Jacques Lipchitz's "The Sacrifice,"
a large bronze depicting an ancient Jewish ritual transferring human
sins into a butchered chicken, Elie Nadelman's cherry wood "Dancer," a
top-knotted woman kicking up her heels in the style of American folk
art, and Saul Baizerman's "Crucifixion," with Jesus' body formed out
of a hammered sheet of copper.
The show is liberally laced with photographs including Lotte Jacobi's
famous informal study of physicist Albert Einstein taken in 1938,
Arnold Newman's great chiaroscuro double portrait of the Soyer
brothers, Ben Shawn's powerful "Workers in a Field," and Ilse Bing's
New York scene, "Me and the Elevated."
The show wouldn't be complete without a candid camera shot by the
one-name photographer, Weegee (Arthur Fellig). It shows a baker named
Max making a rush morning delivery of bagels to a restaurant in New
York's lower east side "ghetto" neighborhood in 1940, years before
most of America even knew what a bagel was.
--
(Please send comments to nation...@upi.com.)
BOEDICIA
>From: stevej...@yahoo.com (Steve Dufour)
>Date: 7/24/04 10:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time
>Message-id: <744cc401.0407...@posting.google.com>
>
>Role of America's Jewish artists assessed
>New York, NY, Jul. 24 (UPI) -- The contribution of Jewish artists to
>U.S. art during the era of political, social and intellectual ferment
>that marked the first half of the 20th century is summed up in a major
>centennial exhibition at The Jewish Museum that includes 70 works by
>46 artists from the museum's permanent collection.
Any black Madonnas covered in elephant dung and porn among them?
>Paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints and some outstanding
>photographs tell a story of leadership in artistic trends by such
>artists as Adolph Gottlieb, Jacques Lipchitz, Elie Nadelman, Ben
>Shahn, Moses and Raphael Soyer, Max Weber, William Gropper, Mark
>Rothko and Larry Rivers.
Never heard of them and I doubt anyone else has either.
>What is most interesting about the show, "My America: Art from the
>Jewish Museum Collection, 1900-1955," is its illustration of how some
>Jewish artists used modernism in art to break away from their cultural
>and religious backgrounds while others used artistic innovations to
>embrace their ethnic traditions
>including social activism.
In other words, marxism and anarchism.
>Works by the Soyers, Shahn, Gropper and other artists in the show
>reflect the tough social conditions of a country going through
>difficult times that inspired U.S. Jewish artists to fight for the
>rights of the unemployed and help to unionize them
Mmmm:)
>They also espoused
>the civil-rights movement on behalf of black Americans as well as the
>victims of Fascism in Europe long before the Holocaust.
i.e. they were all commies.
>A few U.S. Jewish artists became part of modern art movements in
>Europe, notably Albert Bloch, the only American member of the German
>Blaue Reiter group of artists. He is represented by a 1941 painting
>titled "March of the Clowns," showing jesters and cartoon
>characters
>Popeye, Olive Oyl and Krazy Kat bearing Adolf Hitler aloft on a
>swastika-shaped pike.
A Van Gogh he ain't.
>Other eye-catching works are Theresa Bernstein's "The Waiting Room --
>Employment Office," a warmly painted 1917 postscript to the Ashcan
>School of American art depicting a common Jewish immigrant experience,
>and the U.S.-born Joseph Epstein's
>chalk drawings, "The
>Revolutionaries," showing a group of earnest young people listening to
>an old Socialist rabble rouser.
Uh oh, it would appear that the long viewed
jew as a commie agitator is true after all.
>Another arresting work is Philip Evergood's painting of a Ku Klux Klan
>lynching ironically titled "The Hundredth Psalm" after the Biblical
>appeal for mercy. William Gropper's painting, "John Reed Club," is
>equally political, showing a ranting right-wing U.S. senator.
John Reed? Buried in The Kremlin isn't he? At least that was the name on a
grave I saw there. 'Ranting right-wing U.S. Senator"?
> Gropper himself was called before the House Committee on Un-American
>activities in 1953 on suspicion of being a Communist.
Funny that.
>Among the sculptures displayed are Jacques Lipchitz's "The Sacrifice,"
>a large bronze depicting an ancient Jewish ritual transferring human
>sins into a butchered chicken,
Oy !!
>(Please send comments to nation...@upi.com.)
I will and my comment will consist of one word - "Garbage". The Germans had an
expression for such rubbish 'Degenerate Art", but I still prefer my opinion of
it -
garbage.
Let me know when you manage to come up with a jewish "artist" with the genius
of
a Van Dyke, Rembrandt, Gainsborough,
Monet etc. etc. etc.
I won't hold my breath.
James Kilner
> Let me know when you manage to come up with a jewish "artist" with the genius
> of
> a Van Dyke, Rembrandt, Gainsborough,
> Monet etc. etc. etc.
> I won't hold my breath.
I'll give you a few musicians. Yitzhak Perlman, Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac
Stern, Gustav Mahler. All Jewish and all at the top of their artistic
profession and world renowned as such.
Susan Cohen
"James Kilner" <james...@iee.org> wrote in message
news:91175f50.04072...@posting.google.com...
Chagall.
Of course, however, she will discount him.
Susan