#the jewish museum

During Pride Month, take a closer look at this 1926 painting of a gender-ambiguous couple on view now in Scenes from the Collection.Gert Wollheim, a German-Jewish artist, lived in Berlin at the height of the Weimar Republic. His portrait depicts the pair standing in a café during a period in Germany of economic instability and reckoning with the ghosts of World War I, when social convention and sexual mores were challenged. While fashionable and theatrical, the figures are not obviously women. Newly granted the right to vote, women of the era were called Neue Frau and enjoyed greater earning power and sexual freedom than ever before. Wollheim painted the couple to reflect those newfound liberties, and also used a visual trope to identify them as lesbians.

“It was oddly liberating. You identify yourself more as a gay man, or whoever you are, and it helps you to realize who you are as an artist,” said Ross Bleckner. In honor of Pride Month, celebrate with the artist’s Double Portrait (Gay Flag) on view now. As its title suggests, this self-portrait raises the conceptual issue of doubleness: the stripes form the gay pride flag, referring to the artist’s own identity as a gay man, and his Jewishness is symbolized by the Star of David, in subtle low relief at upper center of the painting.

This fall, the Jewish Museum presents a rare opportunity to explore a little-known chapter in the Russian avant-garde. Opening on September 14, Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918-1922features some 120 works of three iconic figures—Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich—as well as works by students and teachers of the Vitebsk school—100 years after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Artist Eva Hesse died on this day in 1970. This untitled work on view now was one of her final paintings. Hesse was reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex at this time, and the text led her to question her own fragmented status as artist, woman, and wife. Her work, though not overtly political, explored these issues in poetic, expressive abstractions.

The Jewish Museum remembers artist Robert Indiana, creator of the iconic Love sculpture, one of the most recognizable artworks of the 20th century. His work in the Jewish Museum collection Ahava means love in Hebrew

This Sunday, bring mom to the Jewish Museum to explore art together on Mother’s Day. This 1984 photograph by Larry Sultan Untitled (Mom Posing in Front of a Green Wall)on view now, captures the artist’s Jewish parents living out the American dream in California: glamorous, sporty—with matching white pants and matching tans—bearing no identifiable trace of the Old World.

Chaim Soutine: Flesh opens today at the Jewish Museum, featuring 32 paintings by the Expressionist known for his gestural and densely painted canvases. In the Paris of the 1920s, Soutine was a double outsider—an immigrant Jew and a modernist. Guided by his expressive artistic instincts, he both embraced the traditional genre of still life and exploded it. His remarkable still life depictions of hanging fowl, beef carcasses, and rayfish, now considered among his greatest artistic achievements. 

“They say Courbet could give in his nudes all the character of Paris. I want to show all that is Paris in the carcass of an ox."—Chaim Soutine

One week until Chaim Soutine: Flesh opens at the Jewish Museum, focusing on the artist’s remarkable paintings depicting hanging fowl, beef carcasses, and rayfish, now considered among his greatest artistic achievements.

We’re celebrating Earth Day with our 100% recycled and biodegradable seed paper kippah in the Jewish Museum collection made by Circles of Life. When exposed to soil and water, this kippah is recycled into a flower garden.

Congratulations to Jewish Museum artist Kehinde Wiley and architect Elizabeth Diller (who designed our 2016 exhibition Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design), named among the most influential people of 2018 by TIME.

For American painter Joan Snyder, who turns 78 today, feminist art begins with the application of paint to canvas: “The strokes in my paintings speak of my life and experiences.” Snyder began making art in the late 1960s, a time when men dominated the art world. Her 1971 painting Hard Sweetness is on view now in Scenes from the Collection at the Jewish Museum. 

Today on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember the victims of the Holocaust through objects such as survivor Greta Perlman’s charm bracelet, created during her internment in the camp-ghetto of Theresienstadt from 1941 to 1944. Every charm tells a story, presenting aspects of her life and her struggle for survival.

On National Pet Day, enjoy this 1935 portrait of American art dealer Edith Halpert and her dog Adam by painter Bernard Karfiol, newly acquired for the Jewish Museum collection.

The Jewish Museum will be open and admission is for Passover, tomorrow, April 6 and Saturday, April 7. Learn about the holiday through works of art on view now in Scenes from the Collection, such as this Bauhaus-inspired Passover set by Ludwig Yehuda Wolpert, the celebrated designer known for bringing modernism to Jewish ceremonial art.

On the 50th Anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. we remember the civil rights leader through artist Marcelo Brodsky’s triptych of Dr. King marching in Selma alongside Rabbi Abraham Heschel. The historic march with King’s participation, together with other Human Rights Leaders, greatly helped raise awareness of the difficulty faced by black voters in the south and the need for a Voting Right act, passed later that year.

Opening in one month from today, the Jewish Museum presents Chaim Soutine: Flesh, an exhibition of 32 paintings by the Expressionist known for his gestural and densely painted canvases. The exhibition highlights the unique visual conceptions and painterly energy that the artist brought to the tradition of still-life. Soutine’s remarkable paintings depicting hanging fowl, beef carcasses, and rayfish are now considered among his greatest artistic achievements.

Installation in progress for the hand-painted @colossalmedia mural for our current exhibition Marc Camille Chaimowicz: Your Place or Mine… on view at the Jewish Museum through August 5. See the completed wall for yourself on the corner of Dobbin Street and Norman Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Why is this night different from all other nights? For the first Passover Seder, enjoy this c. 1900-38 Seder plate from Bohemia (present day Czech Republic) on view now in Scenes from the Collection. The Jewish Museum is open during Passover, and admission is free March 31 – April 1 and April 6 – 7. Learn more about Passover in the Jewish Museum collection.

Passover begins at sundown this Friday, March 30. The holiday commemorates the Jewish Exodus from Egypt, and starts with the ritual Seder meal, depicted here by artist Nicole Eisenman in her 2010 painting Seder on view now in Scenes from the Collection. The Jewish Museum will be open during the Passover holiday, and admission is free on select days of Passover: March 31, April 1, 6, and 7. Plan your visit.

Happy birthday to Mel Bochner, an artist known for his career-long fascination with the cerebral and visual associations of words. The title of his painting on view now refers to Leo Rosten’s classic 1968 book The Joys of Yiddish. That many of these Yiddish words have entered the mainstream American vocabulary says a lot about the assimilation of Jews. How many words can you recognize in this painting?