Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America

“Baskind presents an illuminating analysis of the largely ignored biblically-themed work of five Jewish artists, well-known on the twentieth century American art scene for their oeuvre.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Baskind’s careful and detailed analysis and art historical background . . . make this a treasure for art historians and students; biblical, Jewish studies, and feminist scholars; and others.”

—Marcia G. Welsh Library Journal

“This beautifully produced and illustrated book examines the place of biblical imagery in the work of American Jewish artists, a topic that, according to Baskind, has heretofore been neglected. . . . The substance of the book is a detailed consideration of the work of five Jewish artists—Jack Levine, George Segal, Audrey Flack, Larry Rivers, and R. B. Kitaj—each of whom receives a sympathetic and often revealing treatment. These biographies, along with a concluding epilogue, are amplified by observations on comparable work by other Jewish artists laboring in the same vein.”

—W. Cahn Choice

“This book is a meticulous examination of a marginalized aspect of the work of five respected American Jewish artists and it opens the way for a re-examination of 20th-century biblical art and what Baskind has revealed as ‘the catalytic role of the Bible on art from the previous century’. The book succeeds, I believe, in inviting us to rethink and re-examine 20th-century American art.”

—Darrelyn Gunzburg Cassone

“In five chapters, art history professor Samantha Baskind offers a sophisticated, richly illustrated look at each artist’s work and influences.”

—Zelda Shluker Hadassah Magazine

“Scholars of contemporary religious history, of art history, and of the immigrant experience will find much to interest them in this fine volume.”

—Peter Webster Reviews in History

“Beautifully illustrated and compelling.. . . . [Baskind’s] fine book argues for a more inclusive art history that is more attentive to the factors that contribute to artistic identity, such as religion.”

—Erika Doss Material Religion

“[An] important, beautifully written, and convincing book, from which art historians, Bible scholars, and scholars of Judaism alike can all greatly profit.”

—Monika Czekanowska-Gutman Journal of Modern Jewish Studies

“A fascinating and beautifully written examination of the role of biblical art in twentieth-century America.”

—Gary Shteyngart

“In our secular age, the idea that the Bible could shape a modern artist, never mind a modern Jewish and American artist, seems odd. Yet in her brilliant new book, Samantha Baskind shows how the Bible—not necessarily only a Jewish Bible (Tanach) but also the American Bible of the Puritans—echoes in Jewish American art. Looking at Jack Levine, George Segal, Audrey Flack, Larry Rivers, and R. B. Kitaj, Baskind provides a sophisticated and critical reading of how religious imagery survives and flourishes in our secular world.”

—Sander L. Gilman, Emory University

“Samantha Baskind admirably undermines the strong tendency among art critics and art historians to ignore the relevance of religion for modern fine art. Her investigation of several important Jewish artists demonstrates irrevocably that biblical religion remains vitally pertinent to the critical understanding of a great deal of art in the modern era. In this beautifully illustrated book, Baskind writes authoritatively about artists whose achievements she carefully scrutinizes for their complex treatment of biblical themes.”

—David Morgan, Duke University

“In a ‘modernist’ century, known chiefly for its increasing emphases both on pictorial abstraction and on secularism, surely a book on this topic, American biblical subjects, comes as a surprise. That all the artists in question were JewishAmericans, many of them recent immigrants and first generation in their profession, arrives with the force of a revelation. Presenting these discoveries, Samantha Baskind remains fully the master of her material, a mature scholar well known for her specialization in Jewish modern artists of twentieth-century America. She judiciously chooses case studies that span issues of medium, gender, generation, and—ultimately—complex, often multiple, identity. Like these individuals, Baskind manages to hold in creative tension all the disparate components of the designation ‘Jewish American artist.'”

—Larry Silver, University of Pennsylvania

“In Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America, Samantha Baskind reimages the careers of five well-known modern American artists by training a focus on their mostly little-known, but more than occasional, adaptation of biblical narrative and imagery, both Old– and New Testament–based. Articulating a profound Jewish connection between painters and sculptors not necessarily considered in tandem under any other rubric, Baskind delineates connective paradoxes underscored by the purposeful adaptation of biblical interpretation (midrash) in the career trajectory of each. She argues, in these five case studies, that the freedom of America’s secular society enabled re-presentation of ancient archetypes and that these, in turn, provided different but equally important cues for ‘navigating modernity.’ Baskind’s new book opens a number of avenues to a wider interpretation of visual art’s role in ongoing debates on ethnicity, gender, and multiculturalism—topics increasingly relevant today. Art historians, Judaic studies scholars, and anyone interested in investigating the American Jewish experience through a twentieth-century lens will profit from reading it.”

—Ellen G. Landau, Case Western Reserve University

“Marked by meticulous original research, creative scholarly thinking, and lucid prose, Jewish Artists and the Bible is a stunning achievement.”

—Andrea Pappas Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture