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A Research Library for Jewish Art
The DFG Project: Expanding and Indexing Our Library’s Holdings
As part of the Funding for Outstanding Research Libraries, the German Research Foundation (DFG) has supported our library project. This has made extensive expansion and indexing of our literature holdings on the visual and applied arts and the visual and material culture of Judaism possible.
Even before the project started, our library stock on these topics was relatively comprehensive. There were however numerous historically predicated gaps that we have been largely able to fill through systematic acquisition. Overall, this project has enabled us to expand our holdings by around 3,550 publications.
In the first phase of the project, we focused initially on searching for and acquiring monographs, anthologies, and exhibition catalogs. The focus of the second project phase was the addition of so-called gray literature, i.e. publications that never reached the book trade. To the collection appeal
All titles that we acquired as part of the project were cataloged according to differentiated subject classification. They are researchable in our OPAC (in German). More on our library system
Moreover we digitized 81 art publications, which are now available in full text and can be found here.
Show OPAC publications (in German)
Even after completion of the project, we are continuing to gradually expand our library collection in the area of fine and applied arts and the visual and material culture of Judaism. This collection focus of national importance aims to contribute in the long term to reestablishing the research tradition in Germany that was interrupted in 1933.
The project was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Scientific Library Services and Information Systems program from December 2013 to February 2018.
Selected Publications
Max Liebermann Exhibition at the Zurich Kunsthaus June – July 1923. Complete list of exhibited works, Zurich 1923; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
Max Liebermann Exhibition at the Zurich Kunsthaus June – July 1923. Complete list of exhibited works, Zurich 1923; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
This slender catalog was published in 1923 to accompany the first exhibition of Max Liebermann’s complete works in Switzerland. From June to July, the Zurich Kunsthaus presented 113 paintings, 400 drawings, and more than 160 prints from all the artistic phases of the then 76-year-old artist. The exhibition was organized by the eminent German-Jewish art dealer Paul Cassirer, who had numerous contacts to well-known collectors, and managed, for example, to win 160 sketches from the German-Jewish collector couple David and Lola Leder’s collection for the exhibition.
The Book of Tobit, a narrative in pictures, 25 pen-and-ink drawings for the biblical text by Ludwig Schwerin, Berlin 1937; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
The Book of Tobit, a narrative in pictures, 25 pen-and-ink drawings for the biblical text by Ludwig Schwerin, Berlin 1937; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
In 1937, the Jewish Book Association Berlin published the biblical Book of Tobit with 25 illustrations by Ludwig Schwerin (1897-1983). Schwerin, from Buchen in Odenwald, had already made a name for himself as a portraitist and illustrator of literary and biblical texts. His illustrations for the Book of Tobit are enriched with elaborate detail and it becomes apparent that landscape and animals are as important to him as figures. Schwerin dedicated the book to his future wife Margret Steinberger. One year after the book was published, the couple fled the Nazis to Palestine.
The graphic Work of Hermann Struck, Arnold Fortlage, and Karl Schwarz, Berlin 1911; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
The graphic Work of Hermann Struck, Arnold Fortlage, and Karl Schwarz, Berlin 1911; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
This leather bound, gold embossed luxury edition was limited to just 50 copies and published by Paul Cassirer Publishers, Berlin, in 1911. The chronological list of prints by Hermann Struck (1876-1944) compiled by the art historian Karl Schwarz includes 246 etchings, 18 ex libris, and 17 lithographs. The concise descriptions of each graphic make it an important source for research on Hermann Struck to this day. Arnold Fortlage’s introductory text describes Struck's artistic career and presents him as an important representative of the Jewish Renaissance. Alongside four original etchings, the volume contains numerous illustrations.
Lesser Ury, Exhibition Marking his 100th Birthday, Berlin 1961; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
Lesser Ury, Exhibition Marking his 100th Birthday, Berlin 1961; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
This catalog was published in fall 1961 to accompany a retrospective featuring around 100 works by the Berlin-based Jewish painter and graphic artist Lesser Ury (1861-1931). It was the first time since Ury’s death that an exhibition in Germany had been dedicated to him. Organized by the Berlin-Tiergarten district authority, it presented paintings, watercolors, drawings, and etchings from all phases of the artist’s life at the Haus am Lützowplatz. In his foreword to the catalog, art historian Karl Schwarz points out that many of Ury’s works were lost during the Nazi era and that the artist had been almost forgotten, even in Germany. The Berlin exhibition contributed significantly to Lesser Ury being revered as an important representative of German Impressionism once more.
A Diary in Pictures: 1917 - 1943, Charlotte Salomon, Hamburg 1963; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
A Diary in Pictures: 1917 - 1943, Charlotte Salomon, Hamburg 1963; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
This illustrated book from 1963 is the first publication of works by Berlin-born Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943). In 1939, she fled from the Nazis to the south of France. Between 1940 and 1942, she created over 1,300 gouaches there with scenes from her life. She provided accompanying explanations for 800 of them gave the title Life? Or Theater? to this impressive cycle, which she herself called a “Singspiel.” Eighty of them were carefully selected for this illustrated book, which provides very personal insights into Solomon’s life and her development as an artist.
Triers Panopticon, 20 colored pictures after originals by Walter Trier, Berlin 1922; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
Triers Panopticon, 20 colored pictures after originals by Walter Trier, Berlin 1922; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
The large-format illustrated volume from 1922 is a compilation of 20 colored pictures by the draftsman Walter Trier (1890-1951), who had already made a name for himself at that time as an illustrator for various magazines. It was his illustrations for several children’s books by Erich Kästner (1899-1974) that made him known to a wide audience. Trier’s drawings with their unmistakable lines, their intense colors, and their love for imaginative detail inspire children and adults alike to this day. Trier’s ironic sense of humor not only shines through in his illustrations but also in the brief preface to this volume.
List of etchings by E. M. Lilien, Berlin, circa 1912; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
List of etchings by E. M. Lilien, Berlin, circa 1912; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
This catalog includes 68 etchings by the Jewish artist Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) from the years 1908-1911. Among them are portraits, biblical depictions, and numerous views of Palestine, where Lilien had already traveled twice. Lilien had only begun working in the medium of etching in 1908. Up until then, he had been closely linked to Art Nouveau with his idealized black and white lithographs. In his etchings, however, he changed his style towards a photographic-oriented realism. As book illustrator and creator of a modern Jewish imagery, Lilien was particularly admired by the cultural Zionists.
Thorheiten, Thomas Theodor Heine, Munich, circa 1901; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
Thorheiten, Thomas Theodor Heine, Munich, circa 1901; photo: Jewish Museum Berlin
This illustrated book contains 33 color caricatures by Thomas Theodor Heine (1867-1948). He originally created them for the satirical weekly Simplicissimus, for which he had worked as a draftsman since its founding in 1896. The magazine’s well-known emblem of a red bulldog baring its teeth also flowed from his pen. Heine’s cartoons are full of ironic allusions and cast a critical, satirical light on the social and political circumstances of his time. He unsparingly attacks the emperor and the military as well as the clergy, Prussianism, and officialdom. When Heine was sentenced to prison in 1898 for lese majesty, it even increased the popularity of Simplicissimus. Heine worked for Simplicissimus until his escape in 1933.
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