The painter Raphael Soyer emigrated from the Russian Empire to the United States with his parents and siblings in 1912. He studied painting in New York and lived there for the rest of his life. He was a staunch social realist, painting scenes of immigrant and city life, as well as portraits of family, friends, and fellow artists. In addition to working in a representational style, he defended it in print against the rising fashion of abstractionism. His brothers Moses and Isaac were also painters.
Soyer’s informal family portrait, Dancing Lesson, has become an iconic image of the American Jewish experience, appearing on many book covers and exhibition catalogs. It was painted about thirteen…
Édouard Moyse’s painting portrays the Grand Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court assembled by Napoleon in 1807 to ratify the answers of an assembly of Jewish communal leaders to twelve questions submitted…
The rhymed Hebrew inscription below the picture of Yeḥiel Mikhel ben Nathan of Lublin notes that he had formerly been a cantor in Lublin and is presently serving in that role in Amsterdam, in 1699…