Drawing from a journey

Immigrant art exhibit paints history with authentic work

By: Caitlin Dewey

Posted: 1/14/09

The real strength of Bird Library's exhibit "Dawn of a New Age: The Immigrant Contribution to the Arts in America" is not its historical photographs, rare documents or detailed research, but the stories behind the papers and the surprising personal connections that both curators and visitors felt with the work.

Nicolette Dobrowolski, one of the curators of the exhibit, is the daughter of a German immigrant who came to the United States with hopes of establishing a new life here.

Her co-curator, Peter Verheyen, is also the child of immigrant parents; his parents emigrated from Germany in 1963. As a result, the exhibit - a part of the 2008 Migration Symposium - was more than mere business as usual; Verheyen called the project a "labor of love," and Dobrowolski said the exhibit was extremely personal for both curators.

"I felt a very strong pull to this project," Dobrowolski said. "We came across a number of images showing ships coming over from Europe, and we realized that that was exactly how our parents came across. The artists in the exhibit emigrated, became naturalized citizens and started families - that's what happened to us. We wouldn't be here without that migration."

Verheyen said his experience with the exhibit was similarly personal; his work on the project revealed a number of parallels between the lives of the artists and those of his parents.

"My parents came to this country in 1963," he said. "The times were different from when most of these artists came over, but they had many of the same experiences. They were seeking opportunities and they followed those opportunities - even the voyage was the same.

"I learned English on a playground," he said. "They learned the language by the seat of their pants, too."

The immigration stories of the five artists in the collection are enshrined on the silent sixth floor of Bird Library, where "Dawn of a New Age" has been housed since Sept. 8. The set of photographs, letters, prints and other papers were all part of the Special Collections Research Center's core collections.

Among the pieces featured in the exhibit are a number of original paintings and illustrations by Turkish industrial designer John Vassos, letters and sketches by Swiss architect William Lescaze, photographs of Russian dancer and choreographer Adolph Bolm, a self-portrait by Ukrainian painter Louis Lozowick, and the concerto score for the film "Spellbound," composed by Hungarian musician Miklós Rózsa.

All of the artists featured in the exhibit were prominent in their respective fields. Many of them had already achieved success in their home countries before coming to the United States; once here, they became influential figures in American art, music, dance and design.

Their goal in selecting these artists, Dombrowolski said, was to not only choose artists from an array of fields and countries, but also to emphasize the artists' physical and cultural journeys.

"Our focus was always the migration," she said. "We focused on the artist's childhood and education and what brought them to this country. They all did great things while they were here, but we were specifically interested in the immigration aspect."

This aspect, more than anything, is what Verheyen considers the exhibit's main success.

"It's my hope that visitors to the exhibit learned more about the people who shaped our culture," he said. "They came from different backgrounds in Europe, but they dove right in and contributed to the culture and life of the country. Immigration tends to be something that's discussed negatively in our society these days, but we're a nation of immigrants."

The exhibit will closed next Tuesday, after what Dombrowolski called five very successful months.

"A lot of classes and community members came through," she said. "We even had a class from another university visit."

The exhibit's greatest accomplishment, however, may have been the emotional resonance it had with many of its visitors, who - like Verheyen and Dombrowolski - felt a personal connection to the artists' stories.

"We have a lot of researchers come from out of town," Dombrowolski said. "Several of them were the children or relatives of immigrants, and they were really interested in the exhibit. They liked the photos and old documents especially … there were a lot of similarities with their own experiences."

cedewey@syr.edu