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…
If Not, Not is one of Kitaj’s best-known works. Inspired by T. S. Eliot’s poem, "The Waste Land" (the poet is depicted at bottom left), it portrays a chaotic landscape, storm-swept and strewn with…
The front of this coin depicts an animal horn, probably a shofar (parallel lines across the horn suggest horns of rams and some other animals). If this is a shofar, it likely signifies praying to God…