Derfner Judaica Museum + Art Collection at Hebrew Home at Riverdale

Upcoming Programs

Taking a Broad View — A Virtual Talk with Chief Curator and Museum Director Susan Chevlowe

Monday, October 26, at 1:30 p.m. on Zoom | Register here >>

Join us for a virtual talk based on the exhibition Taking a Broad View: Portrait Photography from the Collection which features more than two dozen images by fourteen photographers working in the United States from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries. The photographers featured employ a variety of portrait genres, including traditional headshots for entertainment or editorial use, candid portraits, environmental portraits, group and family portraits, and more. Their subjects reflect a range of American identities, from Frédéric Brenner’s women rabbis, cantors, faculty, and students in Manhattan to Larry Fink’s young girl preparing for her first communion in the Bronx, from GisMo’s Cuban American princesses in Miami to Toba Tucker’s Pueblo community members in the Southwest, and such icons of American culture as Ray Charles, James Dean, Betty Friedan, Pete Seeger, and many others.

Derfner x En Foco Panel Discussion: Portraiture in Contemporary Photographic Practice

Thursday, December 3, at 6:30 p.m. | Photo ID required for entry | Register on Eventbrite >>

Join us for a conversation with a panel of contemporary photographers considering questions of how photography continues to shape American social identities and the medium’s potential to create empathy across communities. The panelists will discuss portraiture, identity, and representation and how these ideas show up in their own work and practice. Organized with En Foco and presented in the context of the Museum’s exhibition, Taking a Broad View: Portrait Photography from the Collection, the panel will be introduced by Susan Chevlowe, the Museum’s Director and Chief Curator, and moderated by Oscar Rivera, En Foco’s Managing Director. Each of the photographers has been an En Foco Photography Fellowship recipient in the past two years.

About the panelists
Danny Aros is a queer artist born in Colombia, now based in Harlem. They grew up in Florida where their family immigrated seeking refuge. Utilizing conceptual portraiture, Aros’s work explores issues of gender identity, sexual orientation, and immigration, and the dehumanizing impact that colonialism and American evangelism has had on queer people in Latin America. They seeks to highlight the beauty and stories of people who are stigmatized and underrepresented.

Tyler DeHaarte is a Brooklyn-based Black photographer and visual artist whose practice explores the tension between what has been documented and what has been erased. Through documentary photography, archival imagery, and staged portraiture, he reconstructs fragments of Black history and creates new visual narratives around memory, presence, and visibility.

Sharon Miller is an award-winning hip hop artist, self-taught photographer, and creative educator from Queens. She is the founder of The Creative Youth Society whose mission is to empower and teach New York City youth creative skills and promote future leadership in creative industries. She seeks to use her artistic practice as a vessel for positive social and community change.

About En Foco
En Foco, Inc. is a non-profit that supports U.S.-based photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American, and Pacific Islander heritage. Founded in 1974, En Foco, En Foco makes their work visible to the art world, yet remains accessible to under-served communities. Through exhibitions, workshops, events, and publications, it provides professional recognition, honoraria, and assistance to photographers as they grow into different stages of their careers.