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Chasing portraits : a great-granddaughter's quest for her lost art legacy / Elizabeth Rynecki.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : NAL, New American Library, [2016]Copyright date: ©2016Edition: First editionDescription: viii, 385 pages : illustrations, portraits (some color) ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781101987667
  • 1101987669
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
A Jewish girl should know -- The trouble with Moshe -- Paintings -- Defying Hitler -- Displaced -- Italy -- Legacy -- Cultural assets--lost art -- A loan request -- Gifting Moshe's paintings -- Serendipity -- Toronto, Canada -- University of Toronto -- Schneid Archive -- Poland -- The Jewish Historical Institute -- A tour of POLIN -- Majdanek -- Kazimierz Dolny -- Playing ball -- Roadblocks -- A shared heritage -- Looking forward.
Summary: "The memoir of one woman's emotional quest to find the art of her Polish-Jewish great-grandfather, lost during World War II. Moshe Rynecki's body of work reached close to eight hundred paintings and sculptures before his life came to a tragic end. It was his great-granddaughter Elizabeth who sought to rediscover his legacy, setting upon a journey to seek out what had been lost but never forgotten"-- Provided by publisher.Summary: "I am uniquely situated to tell the Chasing Portraits story. I grew up surrounded by my great-grandfather's paintings. I studied his art and learned to discern his ethnographic and impressionistic documentation style of Polish-Jewish life from a young age. For more than fifteen years I have researched and written about Moshe's work to make the archival information, history, and narrative connections come alive. Over the past several years, there has been a lot of publicity about lost and looted art from the Nazi era. While much of the recent interest centers around the astronomical value of famous artworks both lost and found, there are much greater numbers of lesser known pieces that vanished during the war, and each has its own tale to tell. Chasing Portraits seeks to tell one of those stories in order to share the rich history in the scenes my great-grandfather painted as well as what the paintings themselves represent as survivors"-- Provided by publisher.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 700.92 R995 Available 33111008463404
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The memoir of one woman's emotional quest to find the art of her Polish-Jewish great-grandfather, lost during World War II.

Moshe Rynecki's body of work reached close to eight hundred paintings and sculptures before his life came to a tragic end. It was his great-granddaughter Elizabeth who sought to rediscover his legacy, setting upon a journey to seek out what had been lost but never forgotten...

The everyday lives of the Polish-Jewish community depicted in Moshe Rynecki's paintings simply blended into the background of Elizabeth Rynecki's life when she was growing up. But the art transformed from familiar to extraordinary in her eyes after her grandfather, Moshe's son George, left behind journals detailing the loss her ancestors had endured during World War II, including Moshe's art. Knowing that her family had only found a small portion of Moshe's art, and that many more pieces remained to be found, Elizabeth set out to find them.

Before Moshe was deported to the ghetto, he entrusted his work to friends who would keep it safe. After he was killed in the Majdanek concentration camp, the art was dispersedall over the world. With the help of historians, curators, and admirers of Moshe's work, Elizabeth began the incredible and difficult task of rebuilding his collection.

Spanning three decades of Elizabeth's life and three generations of her family, this touching memoir is a compelling narrative of the richness of one man's art, the devastation of war, and one woman's unexpected path to healing.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-385).

"The memoir of one woman's emotional quest to find the art of her Polish-Jewish great-grandfather, lost during World War II. Moshe Rynecki's body of work reached close to eight hundred paintings and sculptures before his life came to a tragic end. It was his great-granddaughter Elizabeth who sought to rediscover his legacy, setting upon a journey to seek out what had been lost but never forgotten"-- Provided by publisher.

"I am uniquely situated to tell the Chasing Portraits story. I grew up surrounded by my great-grandfather's paintings. I studied his art and learned to discern his ethnographic and impressionistic documentation style of Polish-Jewish life from a young age. For more than fifteen years I have researched and written about Moshe's work to make the archival information, history, and narrative connections come alive. Over the past several years, there has been a lot of publicity about lost and looted art from the Nazi era. While much of the recent interest centers around the astronomical value of famous artworks both lost and found, there are much greater numbers of lesser known pieces that vanished during the war, and each has its own tale to tell. Chasing Portraits seeks to tell one of those stories in order to share the rich history in the scenes my great-grandfather painted as well as what the paintings themselves represent as survivors"-- Provided by publisher.

A Jewish girl should know -- The trouble with Moshe -- Paintings -- Defying Hitler -- Displaced -- Italy -- Legacy -- Cultural assets--lost art -- A loan request -- Gifting Moshe's paintings -- Serendipity -- Toronto, Canada -- University of Toronto -- Schneid Archive -- Poland -- The Jewish Historical Institute -- A tour of POLIN -- Majdanek -- Kazimierz Dolny -- Playing ball -- Roadblocks -- A shared heritage -- Looking forward.

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