The newest issue of Hadassah magazine, their April/May publication, features an article, “Lost and Found,” about Chasing Portraits. You can now read it online.

The Indiewire Project of the Day features films in progress. Today the site is featuring Chasing Portraits as its Project of the Day! On Friday readers vote on the project they liked best. The winning project goes onto another vote at the end of the month! Winner get prizes… the weekly winner gets a digital distribution consultation from SnagFilms (Indiewire’s parent company). And the monthly winner receives a creative consultation from Tribeca Film Institute’s Scripted Programming Department or Documentary Programming Department.

Don’t forget to vote for Chasing Portraits on Friday!

You can see the project featured here:

 

What a great way to end 2014 and ring in 2015! Chasing Portraits is the cover story for J, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California. Here’s hoping for another stellar year for the project!

A lost world, on canvas: Oakland woman reclaims her great-grandfather’s legacy

I really, really, wish I could explain what it’s like to get an email that says, “I’m sending you images and links….have you seen these images?” There’s palpable excitement in the moment before I get to actually see the image – my heart beats faster, my hand moves towards the cursor to click on the link or download the image… Will it be something I’ve seen before? Will it actually BE a Moshe Rynecki painting? Will I recognize the style? Will I know the subject? And then I open the file and it is, in fact, an image I have NOT ever seen before, and yet there is the immediate recognition of the style – the look and feel of my great-grandfather’s approach to painting and composition. There’s an incredible euphoric feeling of the discovery of a piece I had not previously known was out there and the instinct to immediately share it. First I send it off to my father (Moshe’s grandson), then I tell my husband and sons about it, and I have several friends who I share it with in an email, and then I upload it to my website, and then I post it here. Sometimes I struggle to do all those things all at once. A discovery must always be shared with others! It’s what the Chasing Portraits story is all about. I have a line in a grant proposal I recently wrote which says, “This is a story of frustration, hope, and fear, and not one that is easily revealed. But the chase is neither hopeless nor quixotic: I have found dozens of lost works, and have evidence that at least dozens remain to be found.” Today is one of those days where I am ecstatic that I continue to search because today proves that if I keep looking, keep asking for help, keep making my cause known, I *will* find more paintings, I will learn more about my great-grandfather’s oeuvre of work, and I will better understand his art legacy. Thank you for being here so that I may share it with you. The piece here today is the one that is new to me this morning. It is titled, “By the Rivers of Babylon we sat and wept.” It was printed in 1938 in Nasz Przeglad Ilustrowany, no 32, page 2.[Read more…]

Those of you who have followed the Chasing Portraits story for over a year will be familiar with the story of the Otto Schneid archive collection at the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. One of the items in the archive was an article in a German language newspaper that appeared to be almost exclusively about my great-grandfather. The article, printed with the Fraktur font (an almost impossible font to read!), has now been translated into English thanks to the generosity of a follower of the project! There is no header from the newspaper, so it is unclear which newspaper published the piece, or the date of publication.[Read more…]

Through the Eyes of Women is a radio show based out of KHSU in Arcata, California. Several weeks ago they interviewed me about Moshe Rynecki’s art and the Chasing Portraits documentary film project. The interview aired Monday 8 September 2014. Did you miss the show? No problem! The show, “Brenda Starr Welcomes Filmmaker & Archivist Elizabeth Rynecki Discussing The Quest For Her Great-Grandfather’s Lost Art Legacy From Holocaust Poland” is archived on their website.

A big THANK YOU to j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California for not only including my upcoming talk at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in their calendar, but making it their “j.pick.” The talk is Thursday 4 September at the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum. The talk begins at 6pm. Please register online with the event sponsor, ArtTable.

So much of the information uncovered and discovered about my great-grandfather’s art and life comes to me from people who so very kindly help me out. These, “friends of the Moshe Rynecki project,” as I’ve taken to calling them, help to move my project forward. An enormous thank you to ALL who have helped in so many ways including making finds, doing research, offering translations, suggesting useful websites, and connecting me to more people!

Today’s post is made possible by a man in Poland (thank you, Piotr Nazaruk!) who researched a database on Polona.pl (the Polish National Library) and found these articles that mention my great-grandfather. Below is a listing of the articles in the years they were published, a brief sentence if they contain more than just my great-grandfather’s name [I’ve put his name in bold], and photos of all the clippings.

I sometimes get asked the following: (1) How famous was your great-grandfather? and (2) Who were his contemporaries? Newspaper clippings like these that begin to shed light on these questions. 

Please visit the News Coverage page to see more.

1939

Walne Zebranie Stow. Zyd. Artystow Plastykow W Polsce [General Meeting. Jewish Artists in Poland]. Note: This article is about elections to the board of directors of the Jewish Society for the Propogation of the Fine Arts. To the audit committee were elected: Welczer-Szweigerowa, M. Rynecki, Z. Herszman, M. Bengis.

 

1938

Jutro Otwarcie Salonu Dorocznego Z.T.K.S.P [Annual Exhibition of the Jewish Society for the Propogation of Fine Arts Opens Tomorrow]

Salon Doroczny. Zyd Tow. Krzewienia Sztuk Pieknych [Annual Salon. Jewish Promotion of the Fine Arts] A rough translation of the part that talks about Moshe Rynecki, “Representing the naturalism school of painting are R. Mundlak, St. Uzdanski, and M. Rynecki.”

Dzis Uroczyste Otwarcie Salonu Zimowego [Today Opening Ceremony of Winter Salon]

Kronika Zydowska. [The Jewish Chronicle]

Wystawa Zyd. Tow. Krzewienia Sztuk Pieknych [Jewish Exhibition Promotion of the Fine Arts]. Rough translation of information about Moshe Rynecki says, “M. Rynecki, though also an impressionist, has a tendency toward stylization and decorativeness of color, which sometimes resembles art of W. Tetmajer (Ślub/ The Wedding).”

Salon Wiosenny. Wystawa Zyd. Tow. Krzewienia Sztuk Pieknych [Spring Salon exhibition. Jewish Promotion of the Fine Arts]

Otwarcie Salonu Wiosennego Sztuki Zydowskiej [Opening of the Jewish Art Spring Salon]

Z Salonu Zydowskiego Prac Artystow Zydowskich [From the Jewish Salon. Jewish Artists]

Today my blog is featured on another blog, Museum Minute, under their feature, “Meet a Museum Blogger: Elizabeth Rynecki”  In the post I answer several questions about my blog and how it relates to the museum world.  Hope you get a chance to take a look around Museum Minute’s website.  It’s a great resource for museum professionals and those who love museums! It is, as their site says, “a blog full of resources: links to other museum blogs, regular posts on best practices and reports/studies, announcements for professional development opportunities, and features on the relevant news and people of the day.”  

I am thrilled and over the moon to have the story of my quest for my great-grandfather’s artwork featured on the cover of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook section!  I am so very hopeful that this news coverage will shake out more leads and help me to discover more lost pieces.  To read Sam Whiting’s Mystery of ancestor’s lost in Nazi era art haunts woman.