A glass-blown chess set featuring menorahs and crosses. Biscuit tins that are haunting reminders. An oil on canvas of an Old Testament love triangle.
That’s a sampling of the Chrysler Museum’s artwork celebrating Jewish ancestry and history, all part of a docent-guided tour presented in partnership with the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater on May 15.
May is Jewish American Heritage Month, and coincidentally, the 15th falls at the halfway mark of the 50 days between Passover and Shavuot.
Harnessing the power of art and its varying perspectives is among the methods the Jewish community employs to combat antisemitism.
“This is another way for us to get into the community and to educate on Judaism and Jewish Americans and their contributions,” said Hunter Thomas, director of arts and ideas for the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater. “I always say it’s harder to hate or hold prejudice against people when you know those people.”
The one-hour tour at the Chrysler Museum spans more than five centuries. It starts in 1521 with the stained-glass panel “Jesse Sleeping” from Gauthier de Campes and concludes with the abstract expressionism of Yitzhak Frenkel and others.
Diann Nickelsburg, the docent who will lead the tour, describes it as a journey. She encourages questions and discussion of perspectives along the way.
“It’s interesting that we will go from the figure of Jesse and these matriarchs of the religion all the way to contemporary artists in the American scene,” she said. “In between, you have the Biblical stories that relate to the Hebrew Bible.”
Some highlights:
- A 32-piece interfaith chess set created by Gianni Toso gives a new perspective on checkmate. The Italian Jewish artist is the last of a 700-year family line of distinguished Venetian glassblowers in Murano. He connects Judaism and Catholicism with the costumed figurines holding ritualistic symbols of their faith.
- The macabre “Reserve of Dead Swiss” refers to biscuit tins resembling coffins. Used during the Holocaust to store family documents, each displays a photograph and obituaries from a Swiss newspaper. The construction is by French artist Christian Boltanski, whose father hid from the Gestapo under the floorboards of an apartment for two years.
- The oil-on-canvas painting set “Hagar” and “Sarai” is rich in symbolism from the Old Testament. The side-by-side paintings refer to the story of Sarai, Abraham’s wife who was unable to bear children, and Hagar, an enslaved Egyptian girl impregnated by Abraham. Profiled from the right, Hagar wears all black except for white gloves holding a dried bouquet. In contrast, Sarai is profiled from the left in a white wedding dress, fresh flowers in her hands. Mysteriously, Sarai wears sneakers while Hagar reveals her bare feet. Richmond artist Nancy Camden Whitt draws from the psychology of Carl Jung in this surreal work of the women becoming each other’s “shadow.”
The Jewish American Heritage Month Tour is May 15 at 2 p.m. at the Chrysler Museum and requires advance registration. For more information and to RSVP, visit the United Federation of Tidewater's website.
