The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along the Museum Mile in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The leading Jewish museum in the United States, it contains the largest collection of art and Jewish culture excluding Israeli museums, with 26,000 objects. While its collection was established in 1904 at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the museum did not open to the public until 1947. It focuses both on artifacts of Jewish history and on modern and contemporary art. Its permanent exhibition, Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey, is supplemented by both rotating and special exhibitions.
History
The collection that seeded the museum began with a gift of 26 Jewish ceremonial art objects from Judge Mayer Sulzberger to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America on January 20, 1904, where it was housed in the seminary's library. The collection was moved in 1931, with the Seminary, to 122nd and Broadway and set aside in a room entitled 'The Museum of Jewish Ceremonial Objects'. The collection was subsequently expanded by major donations from Hadji Ephraim Benguiat and Harry G. Friedman.
In January 1944, Frieda Schiff Warburg, widow of philanthropist Felix M. Warburg (d. 1937), donated the family mansion as a permanent home for the museum, and the site opened to the public as 'The Jewish Museum' in May 1947. The building was expanded in 1963 and by architect Kevin Roche in 1993.
In the 1960s, the museum took a more active role in the general world of contemporary art, with exhibitions such as Primary Structures, which helped to launch the Minimalist art movement. In the decades since, the museum has had a renewed focus on Jewish culture and Jewish artists. From 1990 through 1993, director Joan Rosenbaum led the project to renovate and expand the building and carry out the museum’s first major capital campaign, of $60 million. The project, designed by architect Kevin Roche, doubled the size of the museum, providing it with a seven-story addition. In 1992, the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center teamed up to create The New York Jewish Film Festival, which presents narrative features, short films and documentaries.
Today, the museum also provides educational programs for adults and families, sponsoring concerts, films, symposia and lectures related to its exhibitions. Joan Rosenbaum was the museum's director from 1981 until her retirement in 2010. In 2011 the museum named Claudia Gould as its new director.
Collection
The museum has over 26,000 objects including paintings, sculptures, archaeological artifacts, Jewish ceremonial art and many other pieces important to the preservation of Jewish history and culture. Artists included in the museum's collection include James Tissot, Marc Chagall, George Segal, Eleanor Antin and Deborah Kass. This represents the largest collection of Jewish art, Judaica and broadcast media outside of museums in Israel. It has a permanent exhibition called Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey, which explores the evolution of Jewish culture from antiquity to the present. The museum's collection includes objects from ancient to modern eras, in all media, and originated in every area of the world where Jews have had a presence.
Highlights
- Man Ray, Self-Portrait with Camera, 1930
- Andy Warhol, Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, 1980
- Eva Hesse, Untitled, 1963â€"64
- Richard Avedon, Jacob Israel Avedon portraits, 1969â€"73
- Adolph Gottlieb, Return of the Mariner, 1946
- Deborah Kass, Double Red Yentl, Split, from My Elvis series, 1993
- Jan Pogorzelski, Hanukkah menorah, 1893
- James Tissot, Adam and Eve Driven From Paradise, c. 1896â€"1902
- Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, 1907
- Reuven Rubin, Goldfish Vendor, 1928
- Marc Chagall, Old Man with Beard, c. 1931
- Johann Adam Boller Hanukkah menorah, Frankfurt am Main (Germany), 1706â€"32
- Torah Ark from Adath Yeshurun Synagogue, Abraham Shulkin, 1899
Art Exhibitions
Over the past twenty years, some of the museum's important exhibitions have included:
- The Circle of Montparnasse: Jewish Artists in Paris, 1905â€"1945 (1985)
- The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice (1987)
- Painting a Place in America: Jewish Artists in New York, 1900â€"1945 (1991)
- Too Jewish?: Challenging Traditional Identities (1996)
- Assignment: Rescue, The Story of Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee (1997)
- An Expressionist in Paris: The Paintings of Chaim Soutine (1998)
- Voice, Image, Gesture: Selections from The Jewish Museum’s Collection, 1945â€"2000 (2001)
- Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art (2002)
- New York: Capital of Photography (2002)
- Modigliani Beyond the Myth (2004)
- Eva Hesse: Sculpture (2006)
- Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976 (2008)
- Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism (2010â€"2011)
- Harry Houdini: Art and Magic (2010â€"2011)
- Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World) (2011)
- Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone sisters of Baltimore (2011)
- The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951 (2012)
- The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats (2012)
- Kehinde Wiley / The World Stage: Israel (2012)
- Édouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940 (2012)
Current
- "Crossing Borders: Manuscripts from the Bodleian Library" (September 14, 2012 - February 3, 2013)
- "Sharon Lockhart | Noa Eshkol" (November 2, 2012 - March 24, 2013)
Gallery
Management
As of 2013, the Jewish Museum operates on a $17 million annual budget. Under Joan Rosenbaum's leadership the museum’s collection grew to 26,000 objects, its endowment to more than $92 million and its annual operating budget to $15 million from $1 million in 1981. Rosenbaum chose to emphasize the Jewish side of the museum’s identity, creating the permanent exhibition “Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey,†while also mounting shows of modern Jewish artists such as Chaim Soutine and contemporary artists such as Maira Kalman. In 2013, the museum's board chose Claudia Gould, former director of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, as its new director.
See also
- List of museums and cultural institutions in New York City
References
- The Jewish Museum New York, Vivian Mann, Emily D. Bilski, Scala Publishers, 1993
External links
- Official website
- "Current Exhibitions" at the Jewish Museum website
- "Past Exhibitions" at the Jewish Museum website
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