The Jewish Museum Announces Their Upcoming Exhibits

The Jewish Museum, one of the world's largest and most important institutions devoted to exploring the remarkable scope and diversity of Jewish culture, was founded in 1904 in the library of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where it was housed for more than four decades. In 1944, Frieda Schiff Warburg, widow of the prominent businessman and philanthropist, Felix Warburg, who had been a Seminary trustee, donated the family mansion at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street to the Seminary for use as the Museum.

CURIOUS GEORGE SAVES THE DAY: THE ART OF MARGRET AND H.A. REY
March 14 through August 1, 2010

Curious George, the impish monkey protagonist of many adventures, may never have seen the light of day if it were not for the determination and courage of his creators: illustrator H. A. Rey (1898-1977) and his wife, author and artist Margret Rey (1906-1996). They were both born in Hamburg to Jewish families and lived together in Paris from 1936 to 1940. Hours before the Nazis marched into the city in June 1940, the Reys fled on bicycles carrying drawings for their children's stories including one about a mischievous monkey, then named Fifi. Not only did they save their animal characters, but the Reys themselves were saved by their illustrations when authorities found them in their belongings. This may explain why saving the day after a narrow escape became the premise of most of their Curious George stories. After their fateful escape from Paris and a four-month journey across France, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, the couple reached New York in the fall of 1940. In all, the Reys authored and illustrated over thirty books, most of them for children, with seven of them starring Curious George. The exhibition at The Jewish Museum will feature nearly eighty original drawings of the beloved monkey and other characters, preparatory dummy books, vintage photographs, and documentation related to the Reys' escape from Nazi Europe, as well as a specially designed reading room for visitors of all ages.

PRESS PREVIEW
Tuesday, March 9

10 am - 1 pm

MODERN ART, SACRED SPACE: MOTHERWELL, FERBER AND GOTTLIEB
March 14 through August 1, 2010

In 1951, architect PercivAl Goodman charged three avant-garde artists with commissions to decorate his Congregation B'nai Israel synagogue in Millburn, New Jersey. Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, and Herbert Ferber-each of whom went on to become a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement-created, respectively, a large-scale lobby mural, velvet Torah curtain, and a monumental exterior sculptural relief. This exhibition marks the first time these works have been exhibited in a museum setting since they were created over sixty years ago. Motherwell's mural presents abstracted Biblical references such as Tablets of Moses (Ten Commandments), diaspora of the twelve tribes of Israel to the four corners of the world, and Ark of the Covenant. The mural, one of the largest paintings of its time, is one of the few works in which the artist worked in a semi-representational manner; however, Motherwell's abstraction of the objects is in keeping with the bold style that he established in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Gottlieb's iconographic design for the Torah curtain, now in the collection of The Jewish Museum, is a late example in the development of his influential pictograph paintings of 1941-53. Ferber's monumental exterior relief, entitled And the Bush Was Not Consumed, expresses a religious theme in an abstract three-dimensional form. In addition to these major works, the exhibition will include studies, maquettes, and photographs, as well as an architectural model of the Goodman-designed synagogue, to highlight the creative process of this groundbreaking collaboration.

PRESS PREVIEW
Tuesday,

March 9

10 am - 1 pm

THE MONAYER FAMILY: THREE VIDEOS BY DOR GUEZ
March 14 through September 7, 2010

In three documentary portraits, artist Dor Guez offers perspectives from different generations of his Christian Arab family in Israel. Family members depicted in the videos include: Jacob, the family patriarch who recounts the 1948 expulsion of Arab citizens of the city of Lod after Israeli independence; his son Sami, who describes growing up among Jews as an Israeli citizen while simultaneously claiming a Palestinian identity; and Sami's daughter Samira, who recounts her experiences of prejudice as she is mistaken for being Jewish. Counted among 125,000 Christian Arabs in Israel, the Monayers consider themselves a minority within a minority.

CONTINUING EXHIBITION

ALIAS MAN RAY: THE ART OF REINVENTION
Through March 14, 2010

The first major multimedia Man Ray exhibition in New York since 1974, Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention, provides a rare opportunity to reassess the artist's impact and gain new insights. Man Ray was one of the most influential and important artists in Dada and Surrealist circles. Yet his work and career remain mysterious to many people. Over 200 works in all media, on view at The Jewish Museum through Sunday, March 14, 2010, provide a new interpretive context in which to understand Man Ray's art. Visitors to Alias Man Ray are privy to the artist's endless experimentation in photographs, paintings, sculptures and objects, drawings, films and a selection of his writings. A trailblazing figure in 20th-century art, Man Ray (1890-1976) revealed multiple artistic identities over the course of his career - Dadaist, Parisian Surrealist, international portrait and fashion photographer - and produced many important and enduring works as a photographer, painter, filmmaker, writer, sculptor, and object maker. Relatively few people know that he was born Emmanuel Radnitzky to Russian Jewish immigrants. The exhibition explores the deliberate cultural ambiguity of Man Ray who became the first American artist to be accepted by the avant-garde in Paris. It also examines the dynamic connection between Man Ray's assimilation, the evolution of his art, and his willful construction of a distinctive artistic persona. Man Ray had an incredible affinity for the cutting edge art of his time. He found a kindred spirit in Marcel Duchamp, and eventually became a legend himself. His artistic achievements include creating the first kinetic sculpture years before Duchamp coined the term "mobile" in reference to Alexander Calder's work. Man Ray also blurred traditional boundaries between painting and photographs, and broke new ground in photography with rayographs and solarization.

CHILDREN'S EXHIBITION

ARCHAEOLOGY ZONE: DISCOVERING TREASURES FROM PLAYGROUNDS TO PALACES

In Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces, an engaging and thoroughly interactive experience, children become archaeologists as they search for clues about ancient and modern objects. Visitors can discover what happens after archaeologists unearth artifacts and bring them back to their labs for in-depth analysis. Children ages 3 through 10 magnify, sketch and weigh objects from the past and the present, piece together clay fragments, interpret symbols, and dress in costumes. By examining these artifacts and imagining how people used these objects in their daily lives, children learn how forms have changed and evolved over time, and how these objects relate to their own lives.

MEDIA CENTER

THE BARBARA AND E. ROBERT GOODKIND MEDIA CENTER

The Barbara and E. Robert Goodkind Media Center features an exhibition space dedicated to video art and new media, and houses a digital library of 100 radio and television programs from The Jewish Museum's National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting (NJAB). Selections include such comedy favorites as "How to Be a Jewish Son," a panel discussion from a 1970 David Susskind Show featuring Mel Brooks; a 1947 radio drama entitled "Operation Nightmare" starring John Garfield and Al Jolson, produced by the United Jewish Appeal to call attention to displaced persons in postwar Europe; contemporary television documentaries on black-Jewish relations, Latino Jews, and klezmer music; interviews with artists such as Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Larry Rivers, George Segal and Ben Shahn; and Manischewitz wine commercials produced between 1963 and 1981 featuring Sammy Davis, Jr. and Peter Lawford.
Episodes of such classic and contemporary television series such as Bridget Loves Bernie, Northern Exposure, The O.C., Seventh Heaven and Sports Night, as well as clips from The Colbert Report, feature interpretations of Jewish life-cycle events and holidays. A selection of musical performances includes a Hanukkah-themed video from the Latino-Jewish urban band Hip Hop Hoodios, an appearance by the Hasidic reggae star Matisyahu on The Late Show with David Letterman, a radio broadcast of liturgy composed by modern Zionist composer Marc Lavry, and a documentary on contemporary music featuring Frank London of The Klezmatics, Debbie Friedman, and Pharaoh's Daughter.

PERMANENT EXHIBITION

CULTURE AND CONTINUITY: THE JEWISH JOURNEY

A focused installation, "Theaters of Memory: Art and the Holocaust," including George Segal's monumental sculpture The Holocaust, 1982, is on view in the contemporary gallery of Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey. Segal's full-scale study for the monument (located in San Francisco's Lincoln Park) is in the collection of The Jewish Museum. The artist's work has become an icon not only of art about the Holocaust but also a work of art intimately associated with the Museum. Also on display is a group of works drawn from the collection - painting, sculpture and video - by Eleanor Antin, Christian Boltanski, Tadeusz Kantor, Anselm Kiefer, Fabio Mauri and Frederic Matys Thursz.
A new acquisition, Portrait of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, 1842, by 19th century German artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, has been added to the "Modernity" section of Culture and Continuity. The subject of this portrait was the sister of famous composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a talented composer and musician in her own right. Fanny Hensel was the wife of a fellow painter, Wilhelm Hensel, whom Oppenheim met in Rome with the Nazarenes. Oppenheim, widely recognized as a portraitist, is known as the first Jewish artist to have benefited from the Emancipation, when new civil rights permitted Jews entry into academies of art for the first time in Europe. Extensively patronized by the Frankfurt branch of the Rothschild family, Oppenheim characterized himself (immodestly) as "a painter to the Rothschilds and the Rothschild of painters."
Comprised of close to 800 works, this vibrant, two-floor exhibition examines the Jewish experience as it has evolved from antiquity to the present over 4,000 years. Visitors to the 4th floor see the Ancient World galleries, featuring archaeological objects representing Jewish life in Israel and the Mediterranean region from 1200 BCE to 640 CE, and a dazzling installation of selections from the Museum's renowned collection of Hanukkah lamps. On the 3rd floor alone close to 400 works from the 16th century to the present are on view in this dramatic and evocative experience.
Other highlights of Culture and Continuity include: a pair of silver Torah finials from Breslau, Germany (1792-93) reunited at The Jewish Museum after sixty years of separation; paintings by such artists as Marc Chagall, Max Weber, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Isidor Kaufmann, Morris Louis, and Ken Aptekar; prints by El Lissitzky; and sculpture by Elie Nadelman. A display of 38 Torah ornaments allows the viewer to compare artistic styles from different parts of the world. It features lavishly decorated Torah crowns, pointers, finials and shields from Afghanistan, Algeria, Austria, England, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Ottoman Empire (Greece and Turkey), Georgia (of the former Soviet Union), Morocco, Israel, Italy, early 20th century Palestine, Persia, Poland, Russia, Tunisia, the United States, and Yemen.
A suite of classic post-World War II works originally designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson and the prominent Abstract Expressionist sculptor Ibram Lassaw for Congregation Kneses Tifereth Israel in Port Chester, New York, is also on view in Culture and Continuity. Included are sections of a large wall sculpture/bimah screen, the eternal lamp, the Torah ark, and two of the four bimah chairs.
Television excerpts from the Museum's National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting are also included. The entire exhibition is accompanied by a series of thematic, random access audio guides using MP3 technology, including a Director's Highlights Tour with The Jewish Museum's Director Joan Rosenbaum and WNYC Radio's Brian Lehrer.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Daytime Lectures
Thursdays March 18; April 1; April 8, 11:30 am
THE WORLD OF CURIOUS GEORGE CREATORS MARGRET AND H. A. REY
Leonard Marcus

March 18: Curious George Saves The Day: The Story Of Margret And H. A. Rey's Harrowing Flight From Nazi Europe To America

April 1: A New Deal For The Nursery: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts And Democratized American Publishing

April 8: Picture Book Bohemia: The Reys Of Greenwich Village

Tickets: $45 - entire series; $20 - single lecture

FAMILY PROGRAMS

Sunday, February 28, 2 pm
CONCERT: THE DIRTY SOCK FUNTIME BAND
Age 3 and up

Tickets: $16 per adult; $11 per child; $13 adult Jewish Museum family level member;
$9 child Jewish Museum family level member

Sunday, March 21, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm
ART WORKSHOP AND GALLERY TOUR: ANIMAL PUPPETRY IN PAPER

Age 6 and up

Free with Museum admission

Sunday, March 21, 11:30 am AND 2 pm

THEATER PERFORMANCES: THE PAPER BAG PLAYERS
The Great Mummy Adventure
Age 4 and up

Tickets: $20 per adult; $15 per child; $17 adult Jewish Museum family level member;
$13 child Jewish Museum family level member

Sunday, March 28, 2 pm

CONCERT: DAVID GROVER WITH GROVER'S GANG
Age 3 and up

Tickets: $16 per adult; $11 per child; $13 adult Jewish Museum family level member;
$9 child Jewish Museum family level member

Sundays through August 1, 1 - 4 pm
DROP-IN ART WORKSHOP
Ages 3 and up

Free with Museum admission

Sundays through August 1, 1:15 pm
STORYBOOKS AND ART
Storytelling and gallery activities
Ages 3 to 7

Free with Museum admission

SPECIAL NEEDS PROGRAM

Monday, March 8, 2 pm
VERBAL IMAGING TOUR FOR VISITORS WHO ARE BLIND OR PARTIALLY SIGHTED
Tour of Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention.

Free with Museum admission

GENERAL INFORMATION

INFORMATION HOTLINE:
To reach the Museum's offices, call: 212.423.3200.

ONLINE INFORMATION:
http://www.thejewishmuseum.org

OTHER INFORMATION:
Public and Family Programs 212.423.3337
The Jewish Museum's Cooper Shop 212.423.3211
Celebrations - The Jewish Museum Design Shop 212.423.3260

NEW MUSEUM HOURS:
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday 11:00 am to 5:45 pm
Thursday 11:00 am to 8:00 pm
Friday 11:00 am to 4:00 pm
Wednesday CLOSED
CLOSED major legal and Jewish holidays
NOTE: The children's exhibition, Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces, is open Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (not on Saturday).

NEW COOPER SHOP AND JEWISH MUSEUM DESIGN SHOP HOURS:
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 11:00 am to 5:45 pm
Wednesday 11:00 am to 3:00 pm
Thursday 11:00 am to 8:00 pm
Friday 11:00 am to 4:00 pm
CLOSED Saturday and major legal and Jewish holidays

ADMISSION:
Adults $12.00
Senior Citizens $10.00
Students $ 7.50
Children under 12 FREE
Jewish Museum Members FREE
Saturdays FREE

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