Social Concern and Left Politics in Jewish American Art: 1880-1940

by Matthew Baigell

This book explores the important and barely examined connections between the humanitarian concerns embedded in the religious heritage of Jewish American artists and the appeal of radical political causes between the years of the Great Migration from Eastern Europe in the 1880s and the beginning of World War II in the late 1930s. Visual material consists primarily of political cartoons published in leftwing Yiddish- and English-language newspapers and magazines. Artists often commented on current events using biblical and other Jewish references, meaning that whatever were their political concerns, their Jewish heritage was ever present. By the late 1940s, the obvious ties between political interests and religious concerns largely disappeared. The text, set against events of the times--the Russian Revolution, the Depression and the rise of fascism during the 1930s as well as life on New York's Lower East Side--includes artists' statements as well as the thoughts of religious, literary, and political figures ranging from Marx to Trotsky to newspaper editor Abraham Cahan to contemporary art critics including Meyer Schapiro.

262 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2015

About the author

Americanist art historian and professor of art history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N. J. Baigell graduated undergraduate from the University of Vermont in 1954 and received his M.A. from Columbia University in 1955. He married Renee Moses in 1959. His Ph.D. was awarded at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. He served in the U.S. Air Force between 1955-57 as lieutenant. Between 1961-65 was an instructor at Ohio State University, advancing to assistant professor, 1965-67, and then associate professor of art, 1967-68. He joined the Art Department of Rutgers University in New Jersey as associate professor in 1968, promoted to professor in 1972. Since 1978 he has been Distinguished Professor of art. Baigell has written seventeen books on art. His latest work is Peeling Potatoes, Painting Pictures: Women Artists in Post-Soviet Russia, Estonia, and Latvia (coauthored with Renee Baigell). He is also the co editor (with Milly Heyd) of Complex Identities: Jewish Consciousness and Modern Art (both titles from Rutgers University Press). His students include Gail Levin.

Reviews

[The Jewish Book Council]

Review by Arlene B. Soifer for the Jewish Book Council.