Sheldon Art Gallery Presents Two Gallery Exhibits by Painter Max Lazarus

The Sheldon Art Galleries presents two new exhibits by painter Max Lazarus in the Bellwether Gallery of St. Louis Artists and Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture. Join us for an opening reception on Friday, February 18 from 5-8 p.m.! Gallery hours are Tuesdays, Noon - 8 p.m.; Wednesdays - Fridays, Noon - 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and one hour prior to Sheldon performances and during intermission. Admission is free. For more information on exhibitions, visit the galleries' website at www.thesheldon.org/galleries.asp. The exhibitions are underwritten by the David S. Millstone Arts Foundation with additional support from Nancy and Kenneth Kranzberg, The Millstone Foundation, Gary and Sherry Wolff, Esley Hamilton, and Angela M. Gonzales.

Related Program: April 5, 7 p.m., Holocaust Émigrés Panel. Please note: this program will be held the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center In Memory of Gloria M. Goldstein, 12 Millstone Campus Drive , St. Louis , Missouri , 63146 . Telephone: 314-442-3714.

 

Gallery Talk: April 12, 6 p.m., Dan Reich, Curator and Director of Education at the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center In Memory of Gloria M. Goldstein will speak on Max Lazarus's career as an artist in exile. Bellwether Gallery, Sheldon Art Galleries , admission free.

Bellwether Gallery of St. Louis Artists

Max Lazarus: Trier / St. Louis / Denver - A Jewish Artist's Fate

 

February 18 - May 7, 2011

Organized by the Stadtmuseum Simeonstift, Trier , Germany , the exhibition Max Lazarus: Trier / St. Louis / Denver - A Jewish Artist's Fate, traces the life and artistic development of the German-born Jewish artist Max Lazarus through over 60 paintings, lithographs and synagogue designs. An extraordinary colorist, Lazarus produced expressive works that included landscapes, portraits and some politically charged subjects. A selection of his synagogue mural designs are shown in a separate exhibition in the Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture. A major, full-color, 344 page, bilingual catalogue of the exhibition, which contains a biography of Max Lazarus and essays on his artistic development, is available for sale in the Sheldon's gift shop for $50.00.

The exhibition opens with several early paintings of his home-town, Trier , and its region. These paintings, made between 1912 and 1936, illustrate how deep his roots were in the area and underscore his capacity as an extraordinary colorist. Portraits from the 1930s are examples of the work he made when his artistic expression was suppressed during the rise of the National Socialist Party (Nazi) in Germany . Several paintings of St. Louis , following his emigration in 1938, trace his attempts at a second career in the United States .

These works demonstrate how he assimilated current tendencies of art and the impressions of his new environment, and how he tried to establish himself on the American art scene. His move to Denver in 1947, due to tuberculosis, is reflected in portraits of his co-patients at the JCRS and in depictions of the everyday life there. A number of paintings of construction sites, inspired by the rapid development of the burgeoning Denver metropolis sites made after his rehabilitation, are also included.

Expressionism and Cubism found their way into Lazarus's paintings, but as an artist whose work always centered on the figure or the landscape, he could not follow the abstract tendencies which dominated the market after World War II. Between the two poles of Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock, Lazarus was classified as too modern for the conservatives and too conservative for the modernists and therefore never gained the recognition he deserved. It is only since the 1990s that the artistic production of the "Lost Generation" of the Expressive Realists has been rediscovered and has regained recognition. With the beginning of the Nazi regime, many of the artists of the "Lost Generation" were ostracized because they were Jewish, or because their artistic style did not fit Nazi aesthetics. Their work was considered "degenerate" and was removed or destroyed. The artists themselves were pressed into service in the war, were forced to emigrate or were killed in concentration camps. Many of the works were also destroyed by bombs. Many artists did not survive the Nazi regime. After WWII, the artists who survived were not able to replicate their earlier success.

Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture

Max Lazarus: The Synagogue Murals

 

February 18 - May 7, 2011

Drawn from the travelling exhibition Max Lazarus: Trier / St. Louis / Denver - A Jewish Artist's Fate on view in the Bellwether Gallery, this exhibition focuses on a series of beautiful gouache paintings of synagogue mural designs that Lazarus completed between 1921and 1931. The exhibition also includes archival photographs and a 3-D animation reconstruction of the synagogue at Langen (Hessen), which was destroyed by the Nazis during the November 1938 Pogroms, also called Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). His first commission, which was for the Merzig Synagogue in 1921-22, was a success. Several more followed, including ones in Homburg (1922-23); Langen (1926); Lübbecke (1928); Neumagen (1928) ); and Herford (1931), all of which were destroyed during November 1938 Pogrom. Mural designs for other synagogues that were never realized are also on view. Lazarus is now considered one of the most important synagogue painters in Western Germany . His work in this area remained forgotten for many years because the synagogues had been destroyed, and it is only now, as a result of the Trier exhibition, that his importance in this area as a synagogue painter is able to be studied and reconsidered.

Biography of Max Lazarus

Max Leon Lazarus was born July 12, 1892 in Trier , Germany . His early career was as an apprentice in to a house painter. After his apprenticeship from 1910 - 1914, he attended several art schools including the School of Arts and Crafts in Düsseldorf, and the School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar, which was to become the Bauhaus. He served in the army as a draftsman on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918, and was injured during a mustard-gas attack. After the war, he returned to Trier and opened a business as a housepainter, while simultaneously continuing his career as an artist. In 1920, he co-founded the Trier Artists' Guild and attended further art classes with the important Albert Reimann in Berlin .

He was one of the first artists in the area to work in the Expressionist idiom. Lazarus also had a very successful one-man show in Luxembourg in 1930. During this time, he created impressive paintings and lithographs with motifs of his hometown and the region around Trier . Most of them were lost during World War II and the time of National Socialism.

In addition to his painting, he was commissioned to create designs for several Synagogues. His first commission, for the Merzig Synagogue in 1921-22, was a success, and several more followed. Under the Nazis, Lazarus was forced to give up painting, and was forced to sell his house for below market value to a member of the Nazi party. At this point, he worked secretly, painting portraits to provide subsistence for his family. His friends urged him to emigrate, but he waited until September of 1938. Like many of the other Jews in Germany , he couldn't believe that civilized people could be capable of the kind of cruelty and horror that soon followed. In 1938, during the November Pogroms, the Nazis defiled the synagogue in Trier . The synagogue suffered further damage due to bombing in 1944, and his mural was lost. Most of the rest of his pre-World War II works were lost too, either destroyed by the Nazis, or during the War Three of his sisters and his uncle were killed by the Nazis in Lodz , Sobibor and Auschwitz in 1942 and 1943.

In September, 1938 he emigrated to St. Louis where he had family. In St. Louis , he made his living by painting custom furniture for the Pulitzer prize-winning St. Louis Post-Dispatch cartoonist Daniel Fitzpatrick and designing wallpapers for the architect Frederick Dunn. From 1939 through 1942, Lazarus took part in several exhibitions at the St. Louis Art Museum and at the Young Men's Hebrew Association of St. Louis. He was also a member of the St. Louis Artists' Guild. In 1942, his already fragile health grew worse when he contracted tuberculosis, and moved to Denver , Colorado . Famous for its clean air, Denver was a center for the treatment of lung diseases. He was hospitalized in the sanatorium of the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society in Denver (now the home of the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design). After his rehabilitation, Lazarus was employed as an art teacher at the sanatorium and took part in several exhibitions around the United States . After a lingering illness, he died in Denver in 1961.

 

Test and expand your Broadway knowledge with our new game - The Broadway Match-Up! How well do you know your Broadway casting trivia?	Play the Daily Game, explore current shows, and delve into past decades like the 2000s, 80s, and the Golden Age. Challenge your friends and see where you rank!
How well do you know your Tony Awards history? Take our never-ending quiz of nominations and winner history and challenge your friends.	Can you beat your friends? Play today’s daily Broadway word game, featuring a new theatrically inspired word or phrase every day!