Roman Vishniac, [Interior of the Anhalter Bahnhof railway terminus near Potsdamer Platz, Berlin], 1929–early 1930s. © Mara VishniacKohn, courtesy International Center of Photography.
Roman Vishniac (1897–1990), an extraordinarily versatile and innovative photographer, created the most widely recognized photographic record of Jewish life in Eastern Europe between the two world wars. Rarely published during his lifetime, his photos spanned 5 decades. His most iconic images, commissioned by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, document impoverished Jewish communities that were previously unseen to outsiders. The International Center of Photography organized an exhibition, “Roman Vishniac Rediscovered,” introducing recently discovered and radically diverse new bodies of Vishniac’s work. The exhibition repositions his iconic photographs of Eastern Europe within the broader tradition of 1930s commissioned social documentary photography.
Roman Vishniac, [Jewish schoolchildren, Mukacevo], ca. 1935–38. © Mara VishniacKohn, courtesy International Center of Photography..
The Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture supported the original exhibition, which premiered at the International Center of Photography in New York, January 18 – May 5, 2013, after which it travelled to museums and galleries in the United States, the Netherlands, France, and Poland. The exhibition was shown at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw from May 8 – August 30, 2015, bringing the photographs to the land where they were originally taken. The highly acclaimed show will now have its California premier at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco from February 11 – May 30, 2016, thanks to continued support from the Taube Foundation for traveling exhibits with Central and Eastern European content at the CJM.
