Painting

Judith with the Head of Holofernes

A composition of many figures before a background of classical architecture.

On Their Way To Shul

This painting is based on a snapshot showing the Schwartz men on their way to synagogue in the 1940s

Chicago artist Howard Schwartz combines the past and the present in mixed media portraits inspired by his family story, a story that, like that of many Chicago families, begins its American chapter

Bar Lev Line

This painting by an Israeli artist takes its name from a chain of fortifications built by Israel along the Suez Canal after the 1967 Six-Day War

Yigael Tumarkin was born in 1933 in Dresden, Germany and grew up in Mandate Palestine.

An Important Lesson

In this painting a French artist invented a Middle Eastern scene in his European studio

The French Academic artist Auguste-Alexandre Hirsch (1833-1912) achieved success with his paintings of Orientalist subject matter.

Abraham’s Wagon…The Stable in Cairo

Now in his ninth decade, the artist Irving Petlin was born in Chicago in 1934 to parents from Eastern Europe and raised in the Wicker Park neighborhood.

In Petlin’s body of work he returns again and again to certain resonant objects and figures, recalled or imagined, in order to see them again from new perspectives and discover alternate meanings.

Towards Moriah

Artist Peter Freudenthal describes his abstract painting as a form of spiritual expression.

Peter Freudenthal (born Norrköping, Sweden, 1938) created his first abstract paintings in 1962, inspired by the architecture he observed while working as an archaeologist in the Wadi Halfa region o

The Inward Journey 1

Chicago-based artist Nicole Gordon creates artwork that is beautiful and uncomfortable at the same time.

Chicago-based artist Nicole Gordon is known for anachronistic and whimsical paintings that often combine encaustic or “hot wax painting” with oil paints.

A Good Place to Begin

Chicago-based artist Nicole Gordon creates artwork that is both beautiful and uncomfortable at the same time.

Chicago-based artist Nicole Gordon is known for anachronistic and whimsical paintings that often combine encaustic or “hot wax painting” with oil paints.

I am seven years old

(After Isidor Kaufmann, The Son of the Miracle-Working Rabbi of Belz) Artist Ken Aptekar overlays paintings from the past with auto-biographical text from the present to help contemporary viewers think about history in relation to their own lives.

A common theme woven into contemporary work in the Spertus Institute collection is the artist's struggle to understand his Jewish identity and its impact on him as an artist and world citizen.

Personnage with Hood and Donkey Ears

Maryan S. Maryan spent the majority of his artistic career painting solitary grotesque figures, many with hoods, animal ears, and explosions of innards. These “personnages,” as he called them, reflect the horror and trauma of his wartime experiences.

Maryan S. Maryan was born Pinchas Burstein in Nowy-Sącz, Poland, in 1927.