New on Display at
Yad Vashem Art Museum
Yad Vashem recently opened a special exhibit entitled "New on Display" in its Museum of Holocaust Art. The exhibit presents works of art that have been added to Yad Vashem's 12,000-piece Art Collection in recent years, and are now revealed for the first time to the general public. The works were created by artists from a wide range of backgrounds and genres, who were active in Europe and North Africa during the Nazi German occupation under varying circumstances: in hiding, in concentration camps, in prisoner-of-war camps, and in the ghettos.
The display includes works by artists who were already accomplished at the outbreak of World War II, alongside those of younger artists who were just beginning their artistic journey in this period. For both the more experienced artists and the novices, continuing to create art was a means of personal expression, as well as testimony during this time of terrible pain and crisis. Groups of works from these collections are integrated into this exhibit, allowing for a fuller understanding their daily struggle and the life story of the artist who created them.
"Each piece in the exhibition tells at least three stories: the story of the artist and his fate in the Holocaust, the content of the work and what is described within it, and the story of the physical embodiment of the work and how it survived and reached us," remarked Art Department Director Eliad Moreh Rosenberg. "The 'New on Display' exhibit connects many artists who on the surface have nothing in common except with their undying drive to create, in spite of the difficult conditions and often at great physical risk. The art they produced gave them the inner strength to live, and expresses faith in the spirit of humanity even when evil and cruelty prevailed all around them."
Yad Vashem recently opened a special exhibit entitled "New on Display" in its Museum of Holocaust Art. The exhibit presents works of art that have been added to Yad Vashem's 12,000-piece Art Collection in recent years, and are now revealed for the first time to the general public.
Yad Vashem
Andre Blondel, The Log Cabin, Aix-en-Provence (1940).
Courtesy of Yad Vashem Art Collection - Gift of Hélène Feydy-Blondel, Paris, France.