Jewish Museum (Manhattan)

The Jewish Museum in New York City is the leading museum of art and Jewish culture in the United States.

Location

The Jewish Museum is part of Museum Mile, located in the New York district of Manhattan in the quarter Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side. It is housed in the former mansion of Felix Warburg at 1109 Fifth Avenue at the height of 92nd Street.

History

The foundation of the collection was a gift of 26 Jewish ceremonial objects of Judge Mayer Sulzberger to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America on January 20, 1904, which were part of the library of the Seminary. The collection moved in 1931 to the Seminary in a building on Broadway at the level of 122nd Street, where he was in a separate room - the " Museum of Jewish Ceremonial Objects" - kept. The collection was later expanded by large donations from Hadji Ephraim Benguiat and Harry G. Friedman.

In January 1944, donated Frieda ship Warburg, widow of the late 1937 Philanthropists Felix Warburg, the mansion of the family as the permanent seat of the museum, so that the collection could be made publicly available in May 1947 for the first time. The facade of the castle-like building designed by architect CPH Gilbert from 1908 cited stylistic elements of French Gothic and received in 1963 a modernist extension for the museum, which was demolished in 1989 and replaced by an extension of Kevin Roche, whose appearance is matched to the main house. With its opening in 1993, the museum doubled its exhibition space.

In the 1960s, the museum took a more active role in the presentation of contemporary art with exhibitions such as Primary Structures (1966 ), who helped to prepare the way to minimalism. Also noted at the time of major artists of American avant-garde such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Philip Guston. In the 1970s, the museum concentrated back to its original orientation and presented exhibitions on Jewish culture and Jewish artists. 1992 called, The Jewish Museum in collaboration with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the New York Jewish Film Festival to life, the Jewish feature films, short films and documentaries presented.

The current permanent exhibition "Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey" (translated: "Culture and survival: The Jewish Journey" ) shows the evolution of Jewish culture from antiquity to the present through a selection objects from the extensive collection of the museum. It is complemented by large, interdisciplinary exchange and special exhibitions. Here, the museum is also known for its art exhibitions that interpret the works of art in the context of social history., The Jewish Museum in addition provides educational opportunities for adults and families, as well as concerts, films, symposia and lectures in conjunction with the exhibitions.

Collection

The museum's collection includes over 26,000 objects, making it the largest collection of Jewish art and culture worldwide. The focus is on objects of Jewish history and culture as well as modern and contemporary Jewish art - paintings, sculptures, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, coins, ethnographic materials, media products, and other elements that are important for the preservation of Jewish history and culture of meaning. Thus, the collection includes a wide variety of objects that are either directly or indirectly in connection with Judaism, who have lived from ancient times to modern art from every corner of the world in which Jews. The collection has so over works of art by James Tissot, Marc Chagall, George Segal, Eleanor Antin and Deborah Kass.

Exhibitions

In the last 20 years, the museum presented a series of major exhibitions: The Circle of Montparnasse: Jewish Artists in Paris, 1905-1945 (1985 ), The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice (1987 ), Painting a Place in America: Jewish Artists in New York, 1900-1945 (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, 1945-2000 (2001), Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery / Recent Art (2002), New York: Capital of Photography (2002), Modigliani Beyond the Myth (2004), Action / Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning and American Art, 1940-1976 (2008), Shifting the Gaze. Painting and Feminism (2010-2011).