Language:
English
Pages:
23 Seiten
,
Illustrationen
Year of publication:
2008
Keywords:
Jüdische Kunst
;
Ausstellung
Abstract:
Visual representations, whether or not they are accurate depictions, reveal how individuals or groups present themselves and how they are presented by others. Images can clarify, complicate, or even contradict accompanying text; they can be created as independent sources of information or to serve as decoration or inspiration. In every instance, they provide evidence that enriches our knowledge of the time and place in which they were created. The Harry and Branka Sondheim Jewish Heritage Collection is thus a unique resource for understanding the history of Jewish life and customs. The Sondheim collection has been carefully assembled over many years by Harry Sondheim, a University of Chicago alumnus (A.B. 1954; J.D. 1957). In 2005, Harry Sondheim began presenting his collection in a series of gifts to the University of Chicago, where it has already begun to enrich Jewish studies. The Sondheim collection provides a rich, varied, and detailed vision of Jewish life from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Luckily for the scholar and student of Jewish life, Harry Sondheim has been guided by his individual history and interests, rather than any conventional formula, in building his collection. While the collection has a strong unifying theme - Jewish life in modern Europe -- he has followed his passions and tastes, acquiring books and images that are meaningful to him. (...) The Sondheim collection is particularly strong in representations of the events of the Jewish life-cycle - birth, circumcision, naming, bar mitzvah, marriage, and death - and those of the Jewish calendar (Shabbat, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Simchat Torah, Sukkot, and Passover). The collection is even richer than this, however, containing numerous representations of Jews at labor and at leisure. Along with his fascination for everyday Jewish life, Harry Sondheim pursued his passion for certain illustrators and artists in developing the collection, in particular Bernard Picart, Ben Shahn, Moritz Oppenheim, Ephraim Lilien, Alfred Szyk, Alphonse Lévy, and François-Louis Schmied. The organization of "Images of Politics, Prayer, and Everyday Life" parallels these strengths in order to suggest the richness of the Harry and Branka Jewish Heritage Collection for the study of Jewish life and customs. Leora Auslander, Professor, History Department; Committee on Jewish Studies; Committee on the History of Culture; Center for Gender Studies Sara Hume, Graduate Student, Department of History
URL:
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/ImagesOfPrayer/
Permalink
