As millions of Jews immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe starting in the 1870s, they brought with them not only their religious heritage but also a definitive idea of the place and value of art and aesthetics in society. These ideas, motivated by local customs, morality, and political and social interests, are clear in the work of twentieth-century Jewish artists such as Mark Rothko, Leon Israel, Max Weber, Saul Bernstein, and more.
In Heritage: Jewish Artists in America since 1900, Matthew Baigell situates these artists in a uniquely Jewish context. Starting from the shared values and references that informed generations of work, Baigell explores a century of progress through that specific lens. Placing these artists in a focused and continuous history of their own, Baigell shows how Jewish art in America has been informed by national and political trends, how first-generation Jewish artists responded to the works of their predecessors and images from a world away, and how contemporary artists reckon with modern Judaism. A pioneering effort to isolate a Jewish art stream all its own, Heritage challenges traditional assumptions about modern American art history and the connections between generations of Jewish artists.