Derfner Judaica Museum
Gilbert Pavilion Gallery | Derfner Judaica Museum | Past Exhibitions
Derfner Judaica Museum
Some Things Seen in Israel: Photographs by Burt Allen Solomon
The Hebrew Home at Riverdale is pleased to announce its latest exhibition in celebration of the 65th Anniversary of the State of Israel. Some Things Seen in Israel: Photographs by Burt Allen Solomon will be on view in the Derfner Judaica Museum from April 14 – July 28, 2013. An opening reception and artist’s talk will be held on Sunday, April 14, from 3:30 – 5 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Please R.S.V.P. to 718.581.1596 or art@hebrewhome.org. The exhibition features a selection of 42 black-and-white photographs taken at intervals over a forty-year period from the Mediterranean Sea to across the Green Line, Israel’s pre-1967 border. Solomon began photographing in Israel in 1968 – arriving days after an El Al hijacking. His images capture the shifts in Israeli culture, fixing them in gestures, lights, shadows and contrasts. With rare exceptions, his images are untitled, encouraging audiences to look and not to be directed toward a particular viewpoint. “My view is that photographs should first stand on their own,” Solomon said. “Only rarely have I given names to pictures. For example, I gave the ironic title Altneuland (Tel Aviv, 2009.3), after Herzl’s book, to a photo contrasting new, multi-story luxury housing on the former site of the Tel Aviv Opera House with a much older building in the foreground.” Reflecting on the many years he has photographed in Israel, Solomon noted, “Even now, having looked at thousands of photographs, my work is basically what I see. I look at what is in my view and some things interest me (subject matter, light, composition). If I have my camera with me and at the ready, I take a photograph. My first trip to Israel was exciting. Everything was new and ‘exotic,’ and there were lots of photographic subjects all the time.” Solomon was born in 1944 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His photographs reflect a documentary, "street photography" style. He has been taking, developing and printing photographs since he graduated from high school, having started out on his father’s World-War-II-vintage Kodak Medalist II camera, with its large “medium format” (2 ¼ x 3 ¼) negative size, and has been behind many cameras since then. Among the photography books that have influenced him, Solomon has noted the acclaimed The Family of Man (1955) and US Camera Annual 1947, as well as visits to the Kodak gallery in Grand Central Terminal. His father, a printer by day and hobbyist photographer, introduced him to the darkroom in a corner of their garage in Brooklyn. Solomon lives in South Orange, New Jersey and is a practicing attorney in New York City. His work has been exhibited previously at Vladeck Hall Gallery, Amalgamated Houses in The Bronx and at the Framing Mill, Maplewood, NJ. As a member of the American Alliance of Museums, The Hebrew Home at Riverdale is committed to publicly exhibiting its art collection throughout its 32-acre campus including the Derfner Judaica Museum and a sculpture garden overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades. The Derfner Judaica Museum + The Art Collection provide educational and cultural programming for residents of the Hebrew Home, their families and the general public from throughout New York City, its surrounding suburbs and visitors from elsewhere. The Home is a nonprofit, non-sectarian geriatric organization serving more than 7,000 elderly persons through its resources and community service programs. Museum hours: Sunday - Thursday, 10:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Art Collection open daily, 10:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. Call for holiday hours.
Tradition and Remembrance: Treasures of the Derfner Judaica Museum
The Derfner Judaica Museum occupies a 5,000-square-foot exhibition space in the Jacob Reingold Pavilion at The Hebrew Home at Riverdale. It is the focal point for a wide range of educational and exhibition programming for residents and visitors alike. Completion of the Museum was funded in part by a furnishings grant received from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. With approximately 250 objects, the inaugural exhibition, Tradition and Remembrance: Treasures of the Derfner Judaica Museum, explores the intersections of Jewish history and memory. The stories of objects used in traditional Jewish practice are interpreted in light of the role of memory in shaping both individual and communal identities. Among the featured objects in the exhibition are a silver filigree vase, ca. 1911, and an early copper alloy Hanukkah lamp, both from the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts founded in Jerusalem in 1906. Other objects come from near and far, including a set of 18th-century German Torah implements, a handsomely illuminated 19th-century Italian marriage contract and a 2nd-4th century lamella amulet.
The Judaica Museum was founded in 1982 when Riverdale residents Ralph and Leuba Baum donated their collection of Jewish ceremonial art to the Home. A refugee from Nazi persecution, Ralph Baum, and his wife, Leuba, had an intense desire to preserve and pass on to future generations the memory embodied in the objects they collected, the majority of which were used primarily by European Jews before the Holocaust. In 2008 the Judaica Museum was named in honor of its benefactors, the late Helen and Harold Derfner. |
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