Roman Vishniac. In Focus: 1922-2022 | Roman Vishniac and His Work
Channel: magnesmuseum
Date: 2022-05-13

The Magnes Collection, in collaboration with UC Berkeley’s Center for Jewish Studies, presented “Roman Vishniac. In Focus: 1922-2022.” on May 1-2, 2022 celebrating the reopening of The Magnes and the richness of the Roman Vishniac Archive.

This 2-day event included an in-person Open House featuring a digital display of photographs by Roman Vishniac, as well as a virtual, day-long Symposium with internationally acclaimed scholars discussing the historical context and content of the photographs Vishniac took. 

This video includes the second of three symposium panels and showcases the following: 

PANEL TWO "Roman Vishniac and His Work"

"Roman Vishniac’s Photographs of East European Jews: An Odyssey of Memory”
Jeffrey Shandler, Professor of Jewish Studies, Rutgers
Description: The photographs that Vishniac took of Jews in Eastern Europe during the mid- to late 1930s have become his most renowned work. The narratives explaining his reason for taking these pictures and the value invested in them have changed over time. Not only have these images become iconic of prewar East European Jewish life; the dynamics of their presentation to the public are emblematic of the development of Holocaust memory over more than three-quarters of a century.  

“Grandfather Roman: A 19th Century Naturalist and 20th Century Photographer”
Benjamin Schiff, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Oberlin College
Description: Roman was an energetic, sometimes cantankerous, endlessly entertaining autodidact. His interests ranged from the history of science to visual art and design, from microbiology to Kabbalah and Jewish communities, from alchemy to the latest photographic innovations.

Moderator: Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, University Professor Emerita and Professor Emerita of Performance Studies at New York University, Chief Curator of the Core Exhibition at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, and a Magnes Scholarly Advisor

Generously funded by the Center for Jewish Studies Annual Diller Lecture and Taube Philanthropies.

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The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
University of California, Berkeley
magnes.berkeley.edu