Love and Betrayal. The German-Jewish artist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970) A presentation by Rachel Stern, organized by Saint Elizabeth University, Morristown (NJ)

Rachel Stern will present insights into the art and life of the German-Jewish artist Fritz Ascher (1893-1970) and the mission of The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art.

Fritz Ascher, a painter, graphic artist, and poet, was recommended to the art academy in Königsberg by the renown German painter Max Liebermann at the age of 16. From 1913 onwards, he gained recognition as a painter in Berlin. Ascher was a keen observer of his era; the devastation of World War I and the revolutionary turmoil in Berlin inspired him to explore Christian and mystical themes, which he reinterpreted in innovative ways. Following the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, the Jewish-born artist faced a ban on creating, exhibiting, and selling his work. During the pogroms of November 9/10, 1938, he was arrested and subsequently interned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the Potsdam Gestapo prison.

Ascher survived the Shoah from 1942, finding refuge in a cellar in Berlin-Grunewald. During these harrowing and isolating years, he composed poetry. Post-1945, Ascher developed a distinctive artistic style, drawing inspiration from the nearby Grunewald, focusing on landscapes while remaining faithful to his expressionist visual language. He lived a reclusive life until his passing on March 26, 1970.

Rachel Stern is the founding director of the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art in New York. She emigrated to the USA in 1994, wrote for AUFBAU and worked for ten years in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Most recently, she published a selection of poems by Fritz Ascher, Poesiealbum 357 (Wilhelmshorst: Märkischer Verlag 2020) and co-edited with Ori Z Soltes “Welcoming the Stranger. Abrahamic Traditions and Its Contemporary Implications” (New York: Fordham University Press 2024), and co-edited with Jutta Götzmann the exhibition catalogue “Love and Betrayal. The Expressionist Fritz Ascher from New York Private Collections” (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Publishers 2024)..

This event is organized by the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education at Saint Elizabeth University in Morristown, NJ. It is co-sponsored by The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art in New York, NY where it is part of the online series “Flight or Fight. stories of artists under repression.”

To register, click here .