Art by Empathizers

Larry Rivers

Born in the united State of Russian-Jewish parents, Rivers was a major member of the New York school of art beginning in the 1950s and was also a member of the avant-garde neo-DADA group FLUXUS, whose members included Yoko Ono. A major biography has been written about Rivers by Samuel Hunter. Rivers last paintings were handled by Marlborough Gallery in New York. Although most of Rivers' drawings and paintings reflects an expressionism with repetition of imagery and trom d'oeil techniques, he was also influenced by the recent Jewish past, that impelled him to do many drawings and paintings that reflect on Jewish history and the Holocaust. Rivers died in 2002. For references to some of his other paintings see:

• www.artcyclopedia.com
• The Christian Science Monitor
• The Spaightwood Galleries

Mauricio Lasansky

Born in Argentina, Lasansky came to the United States in 1943 with a Guggenheim Foundation grant and worked at Atelier 17 in New York with Stanley William Hayter, Adolph Gottlieb, Jackson Pollack, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz and the Chilean-born surrealist Matta. He is now a professor emeritus at the University of Iowa. His most famous series is "The Nazi Drawings," displayed at the Whitney Museum of Art and Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1965-66. These may been seen at the University of Iowa Museum. The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is dedicated to three Iowa artists: Grant Wood, Marvin Kone, and Mauricio Lasansky. A wide array of his works may be seen on permanent display.

Seth Kramer

A young film-maker from West Orange, New Jersey. His work, Untitled, was shown originally in the Jewish Museum exhibition, TOO JEWISH, curated by Norman Kleeblat. Kramer's work reflects the growing interest in the Holocaust as a subject, especially as it has become Americanized through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and attempts to convey the story through Hollywood's film efforts.

Pearl Hirshfield

Pearl Hirshfield is a Chicago born, first generation American. She is an artist-activist whose installations and works in other mediums deal with cutting edge political, social, and gender issues. Her art reflects and embraces many causes that speak to basic freedoms in the national and global landscape. A trip to Poland in 1985 in search of information about family members who did not survive the war, compelled her to focus on the Holocaust. Hirshfield has exhibited widely in this country, in several European countries, and in Hiroshima, Japan.

Robert Barancik

A successful graphic designer from Philadelphia. "Kvitl Shoah" was the result of a art retreat in Vermont, where it turned out that many artists were thinking and doing work about the Holocaust. The BLAKE + BARANCIK Design Group received the Art Direction Magazine "Creativity 89" award in 1989. Barancik's photo collages were exhibited in Moscow during Spring, 1990 and later in the New York Public Library, The Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Zurich Museum of Art and Temple University Library.  Go here to visit Robert Barancik's web site - Art Not Hate.

Marlene Miller

Educated at the Philadelphia College of Art and the Tyler School of Fine Arts, Miller is a Professor at Sellersville State College in Pennsylvania. Her artistic works involve both feminist issues and the Holocaust. She is also a puppet-maker, which inspired the work in Witness and Legacy.

Shirley Samberg

An American-born sculptor from Roslyn heights, NY and educated at Pratt Institute and Queens College. Samberg's sculptures represent a wide-range of expression but lately have focuses more on issues of human suffering and the Holocaust. She has participated in exhibitions in the United States, Sweden, Poland, China, Israel and most recently Japan.

Arnold Trachtman

Born in the United States and an associate professor of art at the Massachusetts College of Art.  Trachtman is well-known for his incisive paintings and his critique of contemporary sociopolitical landscapes. His major works deal with the more subtle aspects of Nazism, especially the corporate culpability, what Hannah Arendt called "Banality of Evil."

Jerome Witkin

Born in the United States, Witkin was educated at Skowhegn School of Painting and Sculpture, Cooper Union, The Berlin Academy and The University of Pennsylvania. Known for the realism in many of his works, the Holocaust and other aspects of contemporary violence have been subjects of great interest for Witkin. He is a professor of art at Syracuse Uniniversity and has been in more than one hundred exhibitions since 1966.

Jeffrey Wolin

Born in the United States and educated at Kenyon College and The Rochester Institute of Technology, Wolin is now a Professor of Photography at Indiana University in Bloomington. His photographs have appeared in scores of magazines and professional journals. He is represented in the permanent collections of many museums and in 1996 had a major exhibition at the Chicago Art Institute. His works may be seen through the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago.

Susan Erony

Born in the United States, Erony developed an intense interest in photographing the residue of Nazi Germany's corporate structure. This led her into an investigation of race and genocide through art, and the Holocaust. She lives in Boston and is an adjunct professor at SUNY-Albany, and is currently involved in a joint project with German artist Ericka Marquardt.