James Franco paints ad for ‘This is The End’

By Jeffrey Hensiek
Published on May 20, 2013

Heirs of owner of Nazi-looted ‘The Scream’ want explanation on display

Published on October 15, 2012

The heirs of a German-Jewish banker who claim the famous painting "The Scream" was looted from him by the Nazis want a New York museum to explain its history in its new display.

Palestinian TV features artist depicting Israel as child-eating monster

Published on July 25, 2012

An artist who recently appeared on Palestinian Authority TV described one of his paintings that featured an ogre—wearing a skullcap with the Star of David—killing children on a bayonet before eating them, Palestinian Media Watch reported.

Nazi-looted, then returned, painting selling at auction

Published on June 5, 2012

A 16th-century painting that was stolen from its Italian-Jewish owner, sold by France's Vichy government and recently returned to his heirs is being auctioned off.

Portrait of a Jewish family avenged

By Jonathan Kirsch
Published on April 11, 2012

The victims of the Holocaust are most often recalled at their moments of agony and death. But it is also our duty to recall the richness of their lives before Europe fell under the shadow of Nazi Germany. What Hitler sought to destroy, after all, was not merely 6 million human lives but also the whole vibrant culture that they created and sustained.

Opinion: Artists’ ignorant use of the swastika

Published on March 14, 2012

I have a pretty open sense of humor, except when it comes to artists utilizing the imagery used to kill more than 6 million of of my Jewish ancestors. Especially since I’ve volunteered with and met many Holocaust survivors who still have numbers tattooed on their arms, from when they were branded like dogs in concentration camps.

Visit a Museum and Skip The Art

By Annie Korzen
Published on October 12, 2011

Jewish-owned painting returned to heirs

Published on September 14, 2011

A painting sold under duress by its Jewish owners during World War II was restituted to his heirs.

Every Picture Has a Story

By Tom Teicholz
Published on August 9, 2011

For 30 years, Michael Schwartz has owned and operated Galerie Michael, an art gallery on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, building, in his own words, “museum-quality collections, one work at a time.” Works by Picasso, Dali, Goya and Miró adorn the walls for the current exhibition on Spanish masters.

Paint by soul

By Rachel Heller
Published on July 21, 2011

The walls of Ora Tamir’s home are covered with color-soaked landscapes, masked faces and dystopian, dreamlike structures. Just don’t ask her what any of it means.

Getty Museum to return Nazi-looted painting

Published on March 29, 2011

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles will return a 17th-century Dutch painting looted by the Nazis to the heir of the Jewish art dealer. Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker left 1,400 works of art in his Amsterdam gallery when he fled the Nazis in 1940. He died during the escape. His gallery was looted by Hermann Goering shortly afterward. In 2006, the Dutch government returned 202 paintings from its national collection to Goudstikker’s sole heir, Marei von Saher.

Color Me Mine and Boys

By Julia Bendis
Published on December 22, 2010

Arts in L.A. Quarterly Calendar: Cultural events through Feb. 2009

By Dikla Kadosh and Lilly Fowler
Published on December 10, 2008

Arts in L.A. Quarterly Calendar: Cultural events through November 2008

By Dikla Kadosh and Danielle Berrin
Published on September 11, 2008

Calendar Girls Picks and Clicks Aug. 30-Sept. 5: Painting, a benefit, jazz, flies

By Dikla Kadosh and Danielle Berrin
Published on August 28, 2008

‘Simple Twist of Fate’ finds meaning in artist’s work

By Celia Soudry
Published on May 5, 2008

From the small religious village of Beit Yatir, just south of Jerusalem, to the far more secular beach city of Santa Monica, Judith Margolis made quite a journey to become Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion's artist-in-residence.

Celebrating Israel’s 60th, Skirball Style

By Tom Tugend
Published on April 17, 2008

There are many ways to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary, and the Skirball Cultural Center is leading with its strength by offering a series of wide-ranging programs of art shows, music, film and lectures.

The classic Szyk haggadah becomes a modern masterpiece of the digital age

By Tom Tugend
Published on April 17, 2008

There's a 1,000-year-old haggadah, there's an Internet haggadah, and now there is a new $15,000 Arthur Szyk Haggadah.

Jewish art graces Loyola Marymount University

By Celia Soudry
Published on April 3, 2008

Loyola Marymount University (LMU), a Jesuit school, will be the surprising venue for an exhibition of Midrash-inspired paintings this weekend.

R.B. Kitaj—an appreciation

By Tom L. Freudenheim
Published on December 27, 2007

R.B. Kitaj -- an appreciation

Books: The anti-Chagall offers a field guide to the shtetl

By Gabriel Sanders
Published on November 8, 2007

Kirshenblatt's canvasses, together with a stunningly vivid text -- the product of four decades' worth of interviews with his daughter, noted New York University folklorist Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett -- have now been reproduced in a handsome volume by the University of California Press, and the result is a marvel: With his scrupulously recalled images, Kirshenblatt has managed to do no less than create a new visual language for describing pre-war Eastern European life. In stark contrast to the black-and-white record that has made up our vision heretofore, Kirshenblatt's paintings are untainted by the horrors to come. They offer a picture not of Polish Jewish life as it was before tragedy struck, but simply as it was. If Chagall was the shtetl's mythmaker, then Kirshenblatt is his antithesis: a shtetl anthropologist.

Film: Child prodigy documentary spotlights director’s ethical struggle

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on October 4, 2007

Amir Bar-Lev began his documentary, "My Kid Could Paint That," after he tired of creating television programs about pop culture for networks such as VH-1.

‘Europa’ docupic tracks Nazi looting and the fate of art masterworks

By Tom Tugend
Published on September 27, 2007

The Nazi regime was not only the world's greatest murderer, but the biggest thief as well. High on the list of loot were Europe's master paintings and sculptures

Abstract eye follows Dali in film at LACMA

By Tom Freudenheim
Published on September 20, 2007

Early in the last century, when film was a newer medium, many artists were intrigued by its kinetic visual possibilities, and for a fantasist like Dali, the opportunities must have seemed especially rich.

Feminist ‘Scroll’ unfurled for Weisberg retrospective

By Robert David Jaffee
Published on May 3, 2007

Fifteen years since it was last exhibited at the Spertus Museum in Chicago, Ruth Weisberg's "The Scroll," a 94-foot mixed-media painting that encompasses the Jewish feminist narrative in mural form, will be displayed at the Skirball Cultural Center as part of a mid-career retrospective of her work titled "Ruth Weisberg: Unfurled," opening Tuesday, May 8.

Creativity for a cause

By Robert David Jaffee
Published on May 3, 2007

Esther Netter, CEO of the Zimmer Children's Museum, speaks with infectious enthusiasm about her museum's upcoming exhibition, "Show & Tell: The Art of Harmony," which opens Sunday, May 6.

Was Judaism a color on Rothko’s palette?

By Tom L. Freudenheim
Published on November 9, 2006

Like many people of my generation, I first grooved on Mark Rothko's paintings at Washington, D.C.'s Phillips Collection in the 1960s.Despite my long interest in those points at which "art" and "Jewish" intersect, and plenty of immersion in the meditative qualities of Rothko's work, I considered my admiration for Rothko's art to be at some distance from my Jewish sensibilities.

Surprise lesson lurks in show of painters’ works

By Morris Newman
Published on October 5, 2006

The paintings of Philip Guston and Giorgio de Chirico.

‘Nighthawks’ Scribe Brings Hopper Painting to Life

By Robert David Jaffee
Published on August 31, 2006

Based upon Edward Hopper's famous painting of a late-night coffee shop on a desolate city street corner, Douglas Steinberg's new play, "Nighthawks," which is having its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theater, features a painter who says only one word in the entire first act.

Briefs

Published on June 22, 2006

Briefs

Tommywood - Summer School With Schimmel

By Tom Teicholz
Published on June 15, 2006

Paul Schimmel, the Museum of Contemporary Art's (MOCA) chief curator, wants us to spend our summer looking back -- 50 or so years to around the time of his birth, and to the city where he grew up, New York, to focus on the remarkable work of a young, poor and not-yet-famous Robert Rauschenberg, who was gathering junk and detritus from his life (clothes, family photos, fabric) and incorporating them into paintings that then became three-dimensional constructs, which Rauschenberg called "Combines."

Community Briefs

Published on April 13, 2006

Community Briefs

7 Days in The Arts

By Keren Engelberg
Published on March 30, 2006

7 Days in the Arts

A Big Impression

By Wildman Weiner
Published on January 5, 2006

My senior students suffer from short-term memory loss, a condition less severe than Alzheimer's and dementia but nonetheless frightening. They can recall exact moments from decades past, but in the present, from one moment to the next, many don't remember who or where they are. Sort of like elected officials.

7 Days in The Arts

By Keren Engelberg
Published on September 29, 2005

7 Days in the Arts

A Big Opening

By Rob Eshman
Published on September 15, 2005

Museums, like movie studios, prefer to open big.

The high cost of museum management, from health care to advertising, has forced institutions to reach for blockbuster exhibits -- Tutmania! -- market them like summer movies, and pray for long lines and lasting buzz on opening day.

Then there's Max Liebermann.

Skirball Cultural Center founder and director Uri Herscher was in Jerusalem several years ago, visiting a friend's small, art-filled apartment. His eye caught an attractive painting, a Liebermann, his friend said, and Herscher responded, "Who?"

Virtually unknown today, Max Liebermann was the most famous German painter of his time. He died at age 87 in 1935, just as Adolf Hitler rose to power. As he watched the Nazis march through the Brandenburg Gate celebrating the takeover of Hitler, Liebermann famously remarked, "One cannot eat as much as one would like to vomit."

7 Days in The Arts

By Keren Engelberg
Published on September 8, 2005

7 Days in the Arts

Israeli Artist Paints a Path to Healing

By Emily Pauker
Published on June 16, 2005

There is something raw about the rough brush strokes in the work of native Israeli artist Rhea Carmi, and about her textured materials, such as sand and stone. But then, there also was a rawness to the tragedy that originally informed and inspired her work.

Spectator - ‘Time’: a Truthful Family Portrait

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on June 2, 2005

"The black-and-white snapshots revealed little worlds and scenes I wanted to bring alive in color," said Shelley Adler, whose "Shades of Time: The Extended Family of Shelley Adler" runs through July 1 at the Workmen's Circle.

7 Days in the Arts

By Keren Engelberg
Published on February 17, 2005

7 days in the Arts.

Who Should Own Nazi-Looted Art?

By Tom Tugend
Published on November 11, 2004

In another development in this complex and contentious legacy of the Hitler regime, California courts are also dealing with a demand that actress Elizabeth Taylor return a prized van Gogh painting.

Smaller Classes for Smaller Kids

By Andrea Adelson
Published on August 5, 2004

"I want to create a place of wonder," said Lindy Lane-Epstein, who spent the summer attempting to animate her vision for a scaled-down preschool and kindergarten for members of Santa Ana's Temple Beth Sholom.

7 Days In Arts

Published on August 5, 2004

7 Days In The Arts

Helnwein ‘Epiphany’ Afflicts Comfortable

By Mitchell Waxman
Published on July 22, 2004

In contemporary artist Gottfried Helnwein's painting, "Epiphany I," an Aryan Madonna-like figure sits holding a naked, uncircumcised new born boy, while some SS officers stand around her, critically sizing up mother and child. The painting is a reproduction of a Nazi propaganda photograph in which Hitler was the central figure; here in the painting, the mother is.

"Epiphany I: Adoration of the Magi," one of five works by Helnwein currently on exhibit at the Schmeidler-Goetz gallery in West Hollywood, is not the first work of art to explore an uncomfortable subject like the Holocaust.

Art Brings Life to Old Case Studies

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on January 15, 2004

The eight stark photographs show scenes from a decaying mansion in West Adams, where a homeless parent and child "squat" amid dust and detritus. A microwave oven sits on a peeling bureau; a wall has crumbled between the toilet and living room.

The images -- featured in "Still Listening: 150 Years of Jewish Family Service" -- are photographer Albert Winn's present-day response to an old Jewish Family Service (JFS) case history. The 1934 report describes an impoverished family living in squalor behind a tin shop.

Hello Torah, Please Welcome Art

By Gaby Wenig
Published on October 30, 2003

A newly religious female artist came to Chana Rochel Shusterman and told the Orthodox counselor that she was torn between her artistic drive and her religious sensibilities.

Solace in SoCal

By Denise Berger
Published on February 27, 2003

It may seem an auspicious time to bring Israeli artists over to America, as Israel has been in a virtual state of war since the beginning of the second intifada, and America is on the brink of war as well; but in a way, the timing could not have been better to discover what role museums play amid chaos.

Art of Imprisonment

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on July 26, 2001

Alexander Deutsch secretly painted watercolors in an Argentinian political prison after he was kidnapped, tortured and incarcerated by the paramilitary regime in the late 1970s.

From Krakow to Pico

By Mike Levy
Published on July 19, 2001

When Pavel Vogler left Krakow for Southern California in 1992, he brought almost 100 of his favorite paintings.

Remembrance Through Art

By Tom Tugend
Published on December 14, 2000

The Holocaust, impossible to grasp in its entirety, has been depicted, in part, through every conceivable format and medium. Two joint exhibitions, now at The Jewish Federation's Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, surprise with new and affecting insights into the measureless catastrophe.

From Krakow to Pico

By Mike Levy
Published on November 29, 1999

When Pavel Vogler left Krakow for Southern California in 1992, he brought almost 100 of his favorite paintings. The darkly shaded oil works in blue, black and purple show Vogler's vision of his hometown and its medieval Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, filled with empty synagogues. Moonlight, twilight and the glow of streetlamps illuminate Vogler's Polish works, where ghosts of a Jewish history haunt cobblestone streets.

The Art of Memory

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on July 1, 1999

Artist Tobi Kahn is obsessed with memories of the Holocaust. His abstract landscapes depict recollections of a haunted time and place he never experienced. Simple shapes conjure rivers and roads that snake through still valleys, serene at first glance, disturbing upon reflection. Mountain peaks thrust from brooding waters, in a palette of muted browns, golds and blues. Almost always, the paintings are devoid of people. "Sky and water always stay the same," Kahn says, "no matter how well- or ill-behaved we are."

All in the Family

Published on June 17, 1999

Spring erupted with a startling beauty in New York this June, bathing young and old, rich and poor alike in a luxurious halo of sunlight and hope. There's more bounce than usual in the shoppers' stride, more glee in the schoolchildren's shrieks, more color in the dress (and undress) of young lovers strolling the concrete canyons

Dear Deborah

By Deborah Berger
Published on July 24, 1997

Letters to Deborah Berger.

Art as History’s Witness

By Diane Arieff
Published on June 26, 1997

Paintings from Terezin are on exhibit at the Jewish Federation Building