|
Art Museum Loans
Portraits to Germany
back
by Yehudit Inbar and Yehudit Shendar
Josef Kowner
(1895-1967), Self-portrait, 1941, watercolor on paper.
Gift of Leon Kowner family, Haifa |
On 21
September 2003, an exhibit entitled The Right of the
Image… Jewish Perspectives in Modern Art opened at the museum
in Bochum, Germany. Adding to the Biblical prohibition, “Thou
shalt not make any graven image,” Theodore Adorno declared after
the Holocaust: “Writing poetry after Auschwitz is an act of
barbarism”—expressing the earth-shattering cultural crisis of his
generation. This exhibition depicts attempts by Jewish artists to
restore sanity, equality and universality after the Holocaust
through art, reaffirming their Jewish identity and fulfilling
their desire to give form to a Jewish self-image.
Within the succession of artists and
multi-faceted art works displayed—dating from the 19th
century until today—special emphasis was given to the portrait, as
a link between the different parts of the exhibition. As such,
the museum in Bochum requested to borrow 13 works from the Yad
Vashem art collection. The people commemorated in these
drawings—Jews who were persecuted to their deaths by the Nazi
regime—were drawn by Jewish artists during the Holocaust, and are
a mute representation of the horrors of that dark period in
history.
Inclusion of Holocaust artists in an
exhibition of Jewish art is a clear recognition that they are an
integral part of the impressive endeavor of Jewish artists, even
at a time when human culture was being trampled underfoot.
Moreover, displaying Holocaust art in an exhibition dedicated to
the history of Jewish art, in an art museum that is not
Holocaust-centered, is an important acknowledgment of the artists
themselves and the significance of the art collection at Yad
Vashem.
Yehudit Inbar is Director of the
Museums Division, and Yehudit Shendar is Senior Art Curator of
the Museums Division
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
