Sheldon Art Galleries: Friday, 18 February 2011

Please join us for an opening reception on Friday, February 18 from 5 -8 p.m.
(complimentary wine and hors d'oeuvres until 7 p.m.)

Bellwether Gallery of St. Louis Artists

Back Buildings (Hinterhäuser), Trier, 1928, oil on wood panel, 22.83 x 20.28 inches (58 x 51.5 cm). Collection of James and Diane Kerr.

Max Lazarus: Trier / St. Louis / Denver – A Jewish Artist's Fate February 18 – May 7, 2011 Organized by the Stadtmuseum Simeonstift, Trier, Germany, this exhibition traces the life and artistic development of the German-Jewish artist Max Lazarus (1892-1961) through over 50 paintings, lithographs and synagogue designs. An extraordinary colorist, Lazarus produced expressive works that included landscapes, portraits, and some politically charged subjects. Lazarus fled Germany in 1938, after being forced to work secretly in Germany during the rise of the Nazi party. He lived first in St. Louis, where he had a family, then moved to Denver, Colorado, where he contracted tuberculosis. His early career is represented in the exhibition with a self-portrait, several Trier landscapes, and a number of prints. Scenes from his time in St. Louis, like views of the Old Courthouse, Grand Avenue and the United Hebrew Synagogue (now the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center), as well as paintings that reflect the changing Denver cityscape in the 1940s and 50s, are also included. Lazarus's story stands as an example of innumerable "disrupted biographies" that occurred during the rise of the Nazis to power. Lazarus’s life and career were disrupted twice: first by the Nazis and then by his health. He died in Denver, Colorado in 1961. A selection of Lazarus's synagogue mural designs will be on view during this time in a separate exhibition in the Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture. The exhibition is underwritten by the David S. Millstone Arts Foundation with additional support from Nancy and Kenneth Kranzberg, The Millstone Foundation, Gary and Sherry Wolff, Esley Hamilton and Angela M. Gonzales. Gallery Talk: April 12, 6 p.m., Dan Reich, Curator and Director of Education at the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center In Memory of Gloria M.Goldstein, will speak on Max Lazarus's career as an artist in exile. Bellwether Gallery, admission free. Related Program: April 5, 7 p.m., St. Louis Holocaust Émigrés Panel. Please note: this program will be held at the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center In Memory of Gloria M. Goldstein, 12 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis, Missouri, 63146. Telephone 314.442.3714.

History of Jazz Gallery

Gallery of Photography

Larry Fink, Club Cornich, New York, February, 1977, gelatin silver print, 14 3/16 x 14 3/16 inches (image), 20 x 16 inches (paper), image courtesy and © Larry Fink.

Larry Fink: Attraction and Desire – 50 Years in Photography February 18 – May 21, 2011 This exhibition provides an overview of work by the internationally renowned photographer Larry Fink, and includes photographs spanning his 50+ year career. Works from the series The Beatniks, Social Graces, Boxing, Somewhere There's Music, Runway and The Democrats, as well as intimate photographs of his home, family and travels are included. Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1941, Larry Fink studied with Lisette Model and Alexei Brodovich. In the mid-1970s, Fink began photographing at museum galas, art openings and other events, employing a signature lighting style that heightened the human and psychological drama of the moment. In 1980, he moved to rural Martin's Creek, Pennsylvania where country events, his neighbors and his family were his subjects. Fink has had one-man shows at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Musée de la Photographie in Charleroi, Belgium, and the Musee de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, among others. In addition to two John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships in 1976 and 1979, and two National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Photography Fellowships in 1978 and 1986, Fink was awarded an honorary doctorate from the College for Creative Studies, College of Art and Design, Detroit in 2002. His photographic work is also the focus of several monographs, including Social Graces (1984 and 2001); Boxing (1997); Runway (2000); Larry Fink (2005); Somewhere There's Music (2006) and forthcoming, The Vanities: Hollywood Parties from 2000 to 2009 (2011). He is also an influential educator, and has taught at the Yale University School of Art, New Haven and Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture, New York, among other universities. He is currently Professor of Photography at Bard College in New York. A catalogue accompanies the exhibition. The exhibition is organized by the Sheldon Art Galleries, St. Louis. The exhibition is underwritten by Luxco, with additional support from Barbara and Arthur McDonnell and Ellen and Durb Curlee. Gallery Talk: Saturday, February 19, 11 a.m., Larry Fink will speak on his career in photography, Gallery of Photography, admission free.

Bernoudy Gallery of Architecture

Max Lazarus (German, 1892-1961), The First and Implemented Design for Homburg Synagogue, Saarland, Germany, undated, c. 1922-23. Collection of James and Diane Kerr.

Max Lazarus: The Synagogue Murals February 18 – May 7, 2011 Drawn from the travelling exhibition Max Lazarus: Trier / St. Louis / Denver – A Jewish Artist's Fate on view in the Bellwether Gallery, this exhibition focuses on a series of beautiful gouache paintings of synagogue mural designs that Lazarus completed between 1921 and 1931. His first commission, which was for the Merzig Synagogue in 1921-22, was a success, and several more followed, including ones in Homburg (1922-23), Langen (1926), Herford (1926), Lübbecke (1928), Neumagen (1928) and Herford (1931), all of which were destroyed by the Nazis during November 1938 Pogroms, also called Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). Designs for other Synagogues that were never realized will also be on view. Lazarus is now considered one of the most important synagogue painters in Western Germany. His work in this area remained forgotten for many years because the synagogues had been destroyed, and it is only now, as a result of the Trier exhibition, that his importance in this area as a synagogue painter is able to be studied and reconsidered. The exhibition is organized by , Trier, Germany.

GALLERY HOURS: Tuesdays, 12 noon – 8 p.m., Wednesdays - Fridays, 12 noon – 5 p.m., Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.