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  Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America

  Samantha Baskind

  Jack Levine, George Segal, Audrey Flack, Larry Rivers, and R. B. Kitaj have long been considered central artists in the canon of twentieth-century American art: Levine for his biting paintings and prints of social conscience, Segal for his quiet plaster figures evoking the alienation inherent in modern life, Flack for her feminist photorealist canvases, Rivers for his outrageous pop art statements, and Kitaj for his commitment to figuration. Much less known is the fact that at times, all five artists devoted their attention to biblical imagery, in part because of a shared Jewish heritage to which they were inexorably tied.

  Taking each artist as an extensive case study, Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America uncovers how these artists and a host of their Jewish contemporaries adopted the Bible in innovative ways. Indeed, as Samantha Baskind demonstrates, by linking the past to the present, Jewish American artists customized the biblical narrative in extraordinary ways to address modern issues such as genocide and the Holocaust, gender inequality, assimilation and the immigrant experience, and the establishment and fate of the modern State of Israel, among many other pertinent concerns.

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  Design Currency : Understand, Define, and Promote the Value of Your Design Work

  Jennifer Visocky O'Grady and Ken Visocky O'Grady

  The world needs beautiful design. But aesthetics are inherently subjective. In Design Currency, authors Jenn and Ken Visocky O’Grady show you how to frame the value of your design work in terms that your business partners will both understand and respect. An actionable resource, Design Currency empowers you to do your job with less pushback on aesthetic decisions, encourages earlier involvement in the creation process, and makes it easier for you to justify your fees. For a designer, understanding how your work creates value is essential to growing your business and building better, more profitable relationships. Those relationships are easier to initiate, establish, and retain when you can clearly explain how your capabilities meet your client’s needs. This book shows you how to do exactly that. In Design Currency, you will learn how to:

  • Leverage traditional design skills in new ways
  • Measure the value that your design work brings to a project
  • Articulate that value so that you can position yourself as a partner in the development process
  • Charge what you’re worth and prevent your job from getting crowd-sourced or out-sourced
  • Generate business value by better identifying audience needs

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  Jewish Art: A Modern History

  Samantha Baskind and Larry Silver

  Looking at the work of European artists including Moritz Daniel Oppenheim and Maurycy Gottlieb, Camille Pissarro and Marc Chagall, to those in the United States, such as Miriam Schapiro and Eva Hesse, Barnett Newman, and Archie Rand, as well as contemporary Israeli artists, Jewish Art: A Modern History provides a comprehensive, probing and lucid account of a complex subject. It is ideal for all general readers interested in the subject, and invaluable to students of Jewish art and history, as well as scholars in the field.

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  The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches

  Samantha Baskind and Ranen Omer-Sherman

  In the 1970s and 1980s Jewish cartoonists such as Will Eisner were some of the first artists to use the graphic novel as a way to explore their ethnicity. Although similar to their pop culture counterpart, the comic book, graphic novels presented weightier subject matter in more expensive packaging, which appealed to an adult audience and gained them credibility as a genre. The Jewish Graphic Novel is a lively, interdisciplinary collection of essays that addresses critically acclaimed works in this subgenre of Jewish literary and artistic culture. Featuring insightful discussions of notable figures in the industry such as Will Eisner, Art Spiegelman, and Joann Sfar the essays focus on the how graphic novels are increasingly being used in Holocaust memoir and fiction, and to portray Jewish identity in America and abroad. Featuring 87 illustrations, this collection is a compelling representation of a major postmodern ethnic and artistic achievement.

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  The Information Design Handbook

  Jennifer Visocky O'Grady and Ken Visocky O'Grady

  The best information design often goes "unnoticed" by the viewer because it conveys information so quickly and effectively. The Information Design Handbook celebrates graphics that are exemplars of communication and esthetics, and reveals the thought processes and design skills behind them. This comprehensive guide to creating information graphics is packed with essential design principles, case studies, color palettes, trouble-shooting tips, and much more. Designers will learn to achieve graphics that are visually striking yet concise and supremely functional with this must-have resource.

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  Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists

  Samantha Baskind

  Encyclopedia of Jewish American Artists presents over 80 19th- and 20-century Jewish American artists, ranging from the critically neglected Theresa Bernstein, Ruth Gikow, and Jennings Tofel, to the well-known Eva Hesse, Roy Lichtenstein, and Larry Rivers. The subject matter of some of these artists may surprise readers. Adolph Gottlieb designed and supervised the fabrication of a 35-foot wide, four-story high stained glass facade for a synagogue; Louise Nevelson sculpted a Holocaust memorial; and Philip Pearlstein painted a version of Moses with the Tablets of the Law early in his career. Covering painters, sculptors, printmakers, and photographers, as well as artists who engage in newer forms of visual expression such as video, conceptual, and performance art, the book is in part intended to stimulate further scholarship on these artists. When appropriate, entries reveal the influence of the Jewish American encounter on the artists' work along with other factors such as gender and the immigrant experience. In many cases, the artists' own words are employed to flesh out perspectives on their art as well as on their Jewish identity. To that end, the volume contains excerpts from recent interviews conducted by the author with some of the artists, including Judy Chicago, Audrey Flack, Jack Levine, and Sol LeWitt. Illustrations accompanying each artist's entry, some in color, aid this invaluable look at Jewish American art.

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  A Designer's Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing Your Clients and What They Really Need

  Jennifer Visocky O'Grady and Ken Visocky O'Grady

  Doing research can make all the difference between a great design and a good design. Most experienced designers would quantify this "legwork" with the term research. By engaging in competitive intelligence, customer profiling, color and trend forecasting, etc., designers are able to bring something to the table that reflects a commercial value for the client beyond a well-crafted logo or brochure. Although scientific and analytical in nature, research is the basis of all good design work. This book provides a comprehensive manual for designers on what design research is, why it is necessary, how to do research, and how to apply it to design work. As designers embrace research methodologies, they share a common vernacular with their clients, and establish respect as idea people. In an increasingly crowded marketplace, embracing research practices will ensure a continued viable role for designers in business. No other books address this issue for student and professional graphic designers. Books on how to do research are usually aimed at writers, business marketers, and scientists. The ability to execute effective research methods is as important to a career in graphic design as the ability to build a grid or layout a page. Understanding the needs of the client and the client's market are essential components of creating value.

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  Raphael Soyer and the Search for Modern Jewish Art

  Samantha Baskind

  Artist Raphael Soyer (1899-1987), whose Russian Jewish family settled in Manhattan in 1912, was devoted to painting people in their everyday urban lives. He came to be known especially for his representations of city workers and the down-and-out, and for his portraits of himself and his friends. Although Soyer never identified himself as a "Jewish artist," Samantha Baskind, in the first full-length critical study of the artist, argues that his work was greatly influenced by his ethnicity and by the Jewish American immigrant experience.

  Baskind examines the painter's art and life in the rich context of religious, cultural, political, and social conditions in the twentieth-century United States. By promoting an understanding of Soyer as a Jewish American artist, she addresses larger questions about the definition and study of modern Jewish art. Whereas previous scholars have defined Jewish art simply as art produced by people who were born Jewish, Baskind stresses the importance of an artist's cultural identity when defining ethnic art. As Baskind explains how Soyer negotiated his Jewish identity in changing ways over his lifetime, she offers new strategies for identifying and interpreting Jewish art in general. Her analysis of Soyer's work places the artist in a necessary context and provides a valuable new approach to the study of modern Jewish art.