The Jewish visual culture in America is a bridge in its efforts to
adopt and adapt to the mainstream. This visual presentation focuses on
the origins and development of this culture in the United States.
Part I
This first presentation begins with the richness of the Jewish
community in Spain, from which the Jews were expelled in 1492. They
went to many places, including the New World, arriving in New York a
hundred and fifty years later. By the mid-eighteenth century, the Jews
established their first American synagogue, in Newport, Rhode Island.
An American born Sephardic Jewish silversmith (Myer Myers), who
apprenticed under Paul Revere, created rimonim for their Torahs.
In the nineteenth century, a Jewish-American artist and photographer
(Solomon Carvalho) accompanied John Fremont on his western expedition
seeking a route for the cross-country railroad. Another Jewish-American
artist (Moses Ezekiel) fought in the Civil War and studied sculpture in
Europe, creating major works for American sites.
By the turn of the twentieth century, some Jewish-American artists
went to Europe to study in the School of Paris, and were excited by the
avant-garde modernist art in painting, sculpture, and photography. The
individual responsible for introducing the most advanced European art to
America and for bringing photography to the level of fine art was a
Jewish-American artist, Alfred Stieglitz.
Around the same time, the largest influx of Jews to America came from
Eastern Europe. Their artworks reflected their memories and their
experiences. The Depression and looming war in the 1930s impacted
Jewish-American artists in a powerful and poignant way. Their works
emphasize the social conditions of that time. Many European Jewish
artists found safe haven in the United States during the war, and used
their unique approach to highlight the events occurring in those
war-torn lands.
Part II
This continuing presentation investigates the artworks of
Jewish-American artists after World War II. At that time, the
international center of art shifted from Paris to New York City and
Jewish-American artists were leaders in the new aesthetic movements.
From the first female sculptor and president of Artists Equity (Louise
Nevelson) to the internationally acclaimed abstract expressionist
painters (Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Adolph Gottlieb), the
frontiers were wide open for new aesthetic approaches. Jewish-American
artists were in the forefront, from second generation abstract
expressionists (Helen Frankenthaler) to photographers (Diane Arbus,
Richard Avedon), to Pop Art (Roy Lichtenstein) and sculpture (George
Segal), to the individual thrusts of post-modernism (Ken Aptekar, Ida
Applebroog, Barbara Kruger).
The art of Jewish-Americans reflects their individual life
experiences and their cultural and ethnic group. This presentation is
an overview of works by Jewish-Americans from the 18th century through
contemporary times. These artworks, and synagogue architecture,
parallel and reflect the conditions of their lives as American Jews at
specific times in American history.
