The First Blockbuster Art Exhibition of Our Time
A new exhibition highlights the story of how some of the world’s most iconic European paintings left Germany immediately after World War II and ended up touring the United States in what became the first blockbuster art exhibition of our time.
Visual Moment | The Compelling Odysseys of Looted Art
In the sumptuous catalogue for the New York Jewish Museum’s late summer exhibition, Afterlives: Recovering the Lost Stories of Looted Art, on view through January 9, 2022, a cropped image of French artist Pierre Bonnard’s color-diffused painting Still Life with Guelder Roses appears alongside an army photograph of the salt mine in Altaussee, Austria, where the Nazis secreted looted art and other treasures.
Essay | Searching for Solomon Cohen
Own a piece of history! This was what the listing for the “Solomon Cohen House,” built in 1875, urged prospective buyers to do.
Visual Moment | Sacred Art from an Italian Ghetto
In the middle of the 18th century in the city of Ancona on the Adriatic coast of central Italy, a young Jewish girl, about age 15, produced a stunning work of embroidery.
Visual Moment | A Biblical Family Torn Asunder
Some works of art are perfect receptacles for the stresses and troubles of their times while they are graced with a wisdom that is fundamental and ongoing, making them perpetually relevant.
Jewish Museums Leap Into the Covid Void
If there’s one thing museums have learned from the pandemic that forced them into cyberspace, it’s that the audience that is hungry for what they have to offer—whether lectures, courses or archival treasures—is much larger than they knew.
Visual Moment | Milton Glaser: Master of Design
The world lost a towering figure in the field of design this year. Graphic artist, illustrator, teacher, icon maker, art director and creative thinker Milton Glaser passed away after a long illness on June 26, his 91st birthday.
Lost Time: Painting through a Pandemic
Confined to her home studio outside Tel Aviv during the COVID-19 lockdown, artist Zoya Cherkassky started producing a painting a day.
Visual Moment | The Daring Madame D’Ora
Recalling a past that was so different from wartime and its terrors, she wrote: “I was only familiar with one of them, the one perfumed with luxury and flowered with orchids.”
Tom Stoppard: Unfinished Business
A master of the English language who was not born into it, Stoppard exhibits an arresting verbal dexterity, a mix of joy, wit and wordplay.
Visual Moment | Grand Dame of American Art
In many ways, Edith Halpert embodied the spirit of American pragmatism, which is how she explained herself: “I either had to stagnate, which was a thing I dreaded, or go ahead, and the only way to go ahead was to do something beyond what I was doing."
Gaga for Israeli Dance
First, there was nation-building folk dance. Then came influences from European expressionism and American modern dance. Now, Israeli dance has come into its own and is in great demand on stages around the world.