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The Biedermeier period (1815–1848/1849) coincided with the development of a Jewish bourgeoisie in the German-speaking area whose self-understanding was also articulated in the visual arts. One of the most well-known painters of this time is Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800–1882). His works reflect the challenges faced by the Jewish community since the early 19th century; the Biedermeier style with its preferred display of domestic idylls in the bourgeois environment providing him with the opportunity to express himself artistically.The retreat into the private and domestic…

Name of the art school founded in Jerusalem in 1906 by the Jewish sculptor Boris Schatz (1867–1932), named after the biblical architect of the Tabernacle, Bezalel ben Uri. With the establishment of this school, he sought to create a place at which Jewish art could flourish according to Zionist ideas. The understanding of art developed under the aegis of Schatz had a fundamental impact on the development of Jewish art in Palestine up until the 1920s.1. Boris Schatz: from Sofia to JerusalemWith the founding of the Bezalel School in 1906, the demand for Jewish art put forth se…

Form of advertising graphic which was largely developed in the early 20th century by graphic artist and designer Lucian Bernhard (1883–1972), wherein the depiction is consistently limited to the item being promoted and the brand name. This look, characterized by a starkly reduced visual language and two-dimensional colors, is particularly present in Bernhard’s early work. This direction of commercial art, which became known as Plakatstil (poster style), achieved a pioneering significance, especially during the interwar period in Germany in connection with …

A planned city in Nassau County, Long Island, created between 1947 and 1951 and named after its founder, the Jewish building contractor Abraham Levitt (1880–1962). Composed of uniform, inexpensive single-family homes, the settlement was the archetypal modern suburb in the United States and the model for many other suburban settlements. Starting in the late 1940s the massive migration of American Jews from city centers into the suburbs can be traced through the history of Levittown.1. FoundationLevittown was the creation of Abraham Levitt and his sons William (1907–1994…

A stylistic trend of Abstract Expressionism, which emerged in the United States after the Second World War. Its large-format and usually frameless pictures are characterized by the homogeneous use of formally…

The name of the international cooperative of freelance photographers founded in New York in 1947. Magnum Photos is particularly associated with the photojournalism of its co-founder Robert Capa (1913–1954). The oeuvre of Capa (Endre Friedmann), who came from a Hungarian-Jewish family, includes photographs at and behind the fronts of five wars in the mid-20th century. Capa’s visual war reporting is considered pioneering, and his influence on photography in general is unmistakable.With Magnum Photos, its founder Robert Capa and his colleagues Henri Cartier-Bress…

Title of the draft of a futuristic ensemble of several high-rise buildings for the city of Moscow, devised between 1923 and 1925 in Germany by the Russian-Jewish avant-gardist El Lissitzky (1890–1941). With his vision, which transcended the American skyscraper into the horizontal plane, Lissitzky created one of the most original and significant architectural concepts (Architecture) of the 20th century. At the same time the Wolkenbügel (lit. “cloud hanger”) is exemplary of the strong orien…