Derfner Jucaica Museum + Art Collection Past Exhibition Brochures

Impressions of Eastern Europe: Prints from the Permanent Collection

Impressions of Eastern Europe: Prints from the Permanent Collection On view February 23–May 10, 2020 Text by Susan Chevlowe, Chief Curator and Museum Director As participants in some of the most significant art movements of the twentieth century, the 16 artists in this exhibition worked at a time of rapid change, including urbanization, secularization, industrialization,…

Leonard Freed: Israel Magazine 1967–1968

Leonard Freed: Israel Magazine 1967–1968 On view September 15, 2019–January 5, 2020 Text by Susan Chevlowe, Chief Curator and Museum Director Leonard Freed had been living in Amsterdam for a decade when war broke out between Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in June 1967. In response to this news, he…

From the Eastern Bloc to the Bronx: Early Acquisitions from The Art Collection

From the Eastern Bloc to the Bronx: Early Acquisitions from The Art Collection On view May 5–August 25, 2019 Text by Emily O’Leary, Associate Curator The Grosvenor Gallery in London promoted artists from Eastern Bloc countries at the height of the Cold War and came to play a central role in shaping the Hebrew Home…

Erosion: Works by Leonard Ursachi

  Read the catalogue on Issuu Erosion: Works by Leonard Ursachi On view July 15, 2018–January 6, 2019 Introduction Emily O’Leary, Associate Curator In 2008, the Hebrew Home acquired Leonard Ursachi’s work Hiding Place, an outdoor sculpture created for the New York City Parks in 2007 that was temporarily installed in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.…

Swords into Ploughshares: Sculpture by Jay Moss

Swords into Ploughshares: Sculpture by Jay Moss On view from July 15–October 7, 2018 Text by Susan Chevlowe, Chief Curator and Museum Director Over a period of several months in late 1943, Jay Moss’s combat engineer regiment traveled on landing craft from North Africa to the beachhead at Anzio, Italy, landing on January 22, 1944.…

Jerusalem Between Heaven and Earth

The idea of a watershed suggests a branching, be it of physical terrain, historical events or spiritual and aesthetic concepts. This notion is particularly powerful in conjunction with Jerusalem. The exhibition arc encompasses multiple divergences that begin with and come back to the geological topography of the Sacred City.

Brenda Zlamany: 100/100

Life is a journey. The places it takes us are unpredictable—sometimes disheartening but occasionally thrilling. Art is also a journey. The artist leads us—at least, those who pay attention—to places we have never been before, to realms of the imagination we have never encountered, and to paths toward truth we have never tried.

Chuck Fishman: Roots, Resilience and Renewal—A Portrait of Polish Jews, 1975–2016

In 1975, the young photographer Chuck Fishman traveled to Poland to photograph what he has described “was then a dwindling remnant of a once-vibrant Jewish community on the brink of extinction.”* Returning several times between 1975 and 1983, Fishman’s images provide rare glimpses into Jewish life during a period when Jews in the West had…

Across Divides: Borders and Boundaries in Contemporary Art

As described in Genesis, at the advent of the world, God initiated the very first separation, using the term vayavdel (translated as “and He divided”). The world came into being through a series of divisions: light and darkness, day and night, sea and land, animals and human beings. Separation is intrinsic to the biblical Creation…

Susan Schwalb: Metalpoint Paintings

Susan Schwalb: Metalpoint Paintings features 15 paintings executed in metalpoint and colored gesso by master metalpoint artist Susan Schwalb, who has been working in the centuries-old technique since 1973. She began experimenting with silverpoint after encountering the medium unexpectedly via an artist friend. Today, she is recognized as one of the most important living artists…

Robert Katz: The Five Books of Moses

Inspired by the first five books of the Bible, Robert Katz’s mixed media assemblages owe something to childhood memories of his father, an aircraft mechanic during World War II, using tools and fixing things. “Growing up,” Katz has explained, “I remember that the trunk and back seat of our ‘56 Chevy was often filled with…

Etching Out Dreams: Contemporary Slovak Prints by Dusan Kallay, Kamila Stanclova, and Katarina Vavrova

Etching Out Dreams: Contemporary Slovak Prints by Dušan Kállay, Kamila Štanclová, and Katarína Vavrová features three contemporary artists who share connections to Slovak master Vincent Hložník (1919–1997), whose work is represented in the Hebrew Home’s Art Collection. Hložník was an influential artist who founded the graphic design department at the Academy of Fine Arts and…

Richard McBee: Relative Narratives

Richard McBee draws equally from what is read and what is seen. Discussions of Jewish art often set these systems—textual and visual knowledge—in opposition.

Making Continuity Contemporary: Eastern Europe in New York

An exhibition featuring work by eight artists originally from Eastern Europe, Making Continuity Contemporary: Eastern Europe in New York, addresses themes of personal history, geographical dislocation, identity, and intellectual freedom. In different ways, each artist explores both the disruptions in and continuities with their cultural backgrounds, whether through pictorial abstraction, participatory projects, auditory or written…

To Forgive and Remember: Reshaping Contemporary Consciousness

To Forgive and Remember: Reshaping Contemporary Consciousness Text by Susan Chevlowe, Chief Curator and Museum Director Planned to coincide with the Jewish High Holidays, To Forgive and Remember: Reshaping Contemporary Consciousness addresses the historical and present impact of judgment, forgiveness, oneness and remembrance on individuals and communities through the lens of contemporary art. The artists’…

Vincent Hložník: Between War and Dream

Vincent Hložník was born in 1919 in the small Slovak town of Svederník and studied drawing in secondary school. He went on to attend the School of Applied Arts in Prague in 1937. Just two years later, on March 15, 1939, German troops occupied the city. Hložník remained in Prague, and was profoundly affected by…

The Politics of Paint – Landscape Painting in the Soviet Union, 1953-1964

The Politics of Paint – Landscape Painting in the Soviet Union, 1953-1964 On view February 9 – April 20, 2014 Text by Emily O’Leary, Assistant Curator This exhibition features landscape paintings from 1953-1964 created during the Thaw—a period of unprecedented artistic freedom in the Soviet Union following the death of the Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin…

Lynda Caspe – Biblical Reliefs and Cityscapes

Lynda Caspe – Biblical Reliefs and Cityscapes On view September 22, 2013–January 5, 2014 Lynda Caspe and Susan Chevlowe, Director, Derfner Judaica Museum A Conversation Susan Chevlowe: What inspired you to begin the biblical scenes? And why in relief sculpture? Lynda Caspe: I was asked to curate an exhibition for the Synagogue for the Arts…

Some Things Seen in Israel: Photographs by Burt Allen Solomon

Some Things Seen in Israel: Photographs by Burt Allen Solomon On view April 14 – July 28, 2013, and marking the 65th anniversary of the State of Israel Burt Allen Solomon and Susan Chevlowe, Director, Derfner Judaica Museum A Conversation Susan Chevlowe: When one thinks of how Israel has been represented in photographs, many images…

Under the Iron Curtain: Modern Art from the Soviet Bloc

Under the Iron Curtain: Modern Art from the Soviet Bloc features paintings and works on paper from the period 1950-1969 by artists working in the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Created in the politically charged context of Soviet art and culture, the works by 19 artists—both “official” and “unofficial”—represent a cross-section of modern art…

Jonathan Hammer

Jonathan Hammer’s introduction to metalpoint occurred in 1989 when he began experimenting with precious metals to tool text onto leather. Trained as a bookbinder and leather craftsman, Hammer extended the metalpoint medium to drawing, and in the early 2000s, began a series of silverpoint studies of twigs and botanical subjects. This exhibition is the first…

Leonard Ursachi: Bunkers – Drawings and Sculpture

The drawings and small-scale sculpture from Leonard Ursachi’s Bunkers series address the complex relationship between identity, displacement and ideas of home. Inspired by the bunkers that mark the landscape of his native Romania, Ursachi—who now lives and works in Brooklyn—began using the form in 1998 to explore the contradictory feelings of fear and refuge that…

Jane Trigère: Women of the Balcony

Jane Trigère: Women of the Balcony On view October 30, 2011 – February 5, 2012 Jane Trigère and Susan Chevlowe, Director, Derfner Judaica Museum A Conversation Susan Chevlowe: What brought you to Congregation Ohav Sholaum and what did you first encounter there? Can you describe how it looked inside and what went through your mind?…

Micaela Amato: Exile Traces

Micaela Amato: Exile Traces On view March 6–May 22, 2011 Micaela Amato and Susan Chevlowe, Director, Derfner Judaica Museum A Conversation Susan Chevlowe: Sephardi Jews trace their roots to the Iberian Peninsula and have distinct customs, rituals and practices associated with the traditions of that locale and its diaspora communities. Your art engages your own…

Sacred Presence/Painterly Process – Jill Nathanson’s “Seeing Sinai” and “New Translations: Genesis”

Sacred Presence/Painterly Process Jill Nathanson’s Seeing Sinai and New Translations: Genesis On view September 26–December 19, 2010 Jill Nathanson and Susan Chevlowe, Director, Derfner Judaica Museum A Conversation Susan Chevlowe: You have painted abstractly in traditional media since the late 1970s, what inspired you to begin to use mixed paper and plastics in the New…

Words & Images

December 19, 2007–January 31, 2006