Following New York (International Center of Photography, 2013) and Amsterdam (Joods Historisch Museum, April-August 2014), the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme in Paris will present the exhibition Roman Vishniac : de Berlin à New York, 1920-1975. The nearly 220 works on display correspond to different stages of Vishniac’s life.
The exhibition is appealing not only for its documentary interest and the beauty of the photographs, but also for its coverage of Vishniac’s story, which follows the vicissitudes of the countries where he lived, as well as their Jewish populations between the wars. It also offers a broader view of the Vishniac’s career, beyond his famous photographs of Eastern European Jewish communities. We witness his style evolve .
Born into a wealthy Jewish family in 1897, Roman Vishniac grew up in Moscow, where he studied zoology and biology while falling in love with photography. In 1920, after meeting his wife Luta in Riga, Vishniac joined his family, which had fled the Russian Revolution, in Berlin, where he continued his research in microbiology and roamed the streets equipped with a Leica and a Rolleiflex.
His early photographs attest to the birth of a humanist photographer with boundless energy and a striking sense of composition. He photographed families, passersby, his neighborhood and daily life. He had two children in Berlin, Wolf and Mara. With the arrival of Nazism, Vishniac photographed his daughter standing before the spreading signs of persecution, swastikas, election posters and storefronts exalting Aryan supremacy.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
EXHIBITION
Roman Vishniac : From Berlin to New York, 1920-1975
Until Janvier 25th 2015
Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme
Hôtel de Saint-Aignan
71, rue du Temple
75003 Paris
France
