“Erwin Eisch, Mauricio Lasansky, & Zoya Cherkassky: Artists Remember" at the Figge Art Museum -- through January 15. (pictured: Zoya Cherkassky)
Through Sunday, January 15
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Through January 15, the works of three accomplished and innovative printmakers will be on view in the Figge Art Museum's Erwin Eisch, Mauricio Lasansky, & Zoya Cherkassky: Artists Remember, the Davenport venue's exhibition presented in conjunction with the community-wide Holocaust-remembrance project "Out of Darkness: Holocaust Messages for Today” (OutOfDarknessQC.com).
Artists Remember explores the unique imagery artists use to confront the deplorable and murderous history of Nazi era oppression and genocide, their works providing viewers with a safe place for thoughtful recognition and reflection on one of the worst chapters in human history. "Out of Darkness: Holocaust Messages for Today" has been designed as a community-wide effort of cultural organizations, educators, libraries, and sponsors to help children and adults remember and learn from the Holocaust and work together to achieve four common goals: to provide a forum for collaboration within the community and region using Holocaust history to prompt dialogue on issues that are relevant today; to educate the next generation of community leaders on the lessons of history and how those apply today; to build a more vibrant, inclusive, and tolerant community by giving context to the patterns of history around racism, exclusion and authoritarianism; and to create social capital by bonding, bridging, and linking partners to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts for greater community impact.
Among the three printmakers being celebrated in Artists Remember, Eisch, who was born in 1927 and passed away earlier this year, was also a German artist who worked with glass, a painter, and a draughtsman. Eisch's work in glass, along with that of his friend and colleague Harvey Littleton, embodies the ideas of the international studio glass movement, and the artist is considered a founder of the studio-glass movement in Europe.
Lasansky (1914-2012) was an Argentine artist and educator known both for his advanced techniques in intaglio printmaking and for a series of 33 pencil drawings from the 1960s titled The Nazi Drawings. After migrating to and becoming a United States citizen, Lasansky established the school of printmaking at the University of Iowa, which offered the first Master of Fine Arts program in the field. Sotheby's identifies him as one of the fathers of modern printmaking.
And Cherkassky (married name Cherkassky-Nnadi) is an Israeli artist, born in Kiev in 1976, who migrated to Israel in 1991. Her works focus primarily on her personal experiences, including a childhood spent in the Soviet Union and migration to Israel, and Cherkassky also helped found the New Barbizon Group with four other painters, all of them born in the former USSR. Some of her work is also inspired by other media, with a section Chersassy's Pravda inspired by the Russian film Little Vera.
Erwin Eisch, Mauricio Lasansky, & Zoya Cherkassky: Artists Remember will be on display through January 15, with regular museum hours 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays (10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursdays) and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays. Museum admission is $4-10, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
