Fairfield, Conn.—A $30,000 grant to the Fairfield University Art Museum awarded by Connecticut Humanities will enable the museum to present the largest exhibition of Arthur Szyk’s work in the Northeast in over 50 years. Arthur Szyk’s compelling political cartoons placed Nazi genocide, tyranny, and antisemitism on the covers of America’s most popular magazines during World War II. Today, his pioneering examples of graphic storytelling have renewed relevance in a new exhibition at the Fairfield University Art Museum. 

“In Real Times. Arthur Szyk: Artist and Soldier for Human Rights” will be open to the public September 29 through December 16, 2023 at Fairfield University Art Museum’s Bellarmine Hall Galleries, with an adjunct exhibition entitled “Szyk: The Interactive Experience” opening on the same date in the Museum’s Walsh Gallery. Szyk was one of the first public figures to take immediate, direct action in bringing attention to the Holocaust as it was being perpetrated – and did it uniquely through his artistic medium. The miniature scale of his pieces stands in striking juxtaposition to the magnitude of the themes they confronted and the human rights violations they exposed.

“In Real Times. Arthur Szyk: Artist and Soldier for Human Rights” is curated by Francesco Spagnolo, PhD, curator of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the University of California, Berkeley. The acquisition of the Taube Family Arthur Szyk Collection (2017) and research for this exhibition were made possible by a generous gift from Taube Philanthropies. The exhibition opened at the Magnes in May 2021, and was later on view at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans before coming to the Fairfield University Art Museum, the exclusive exhibition venue in the Northeast. At the Fairfield University Art Museum, the exhibition is coordinated by Philip Eliasoph, PhD, professor of Art History and Visual Culture and special assistant to the President for Arts and Culture, and is co-sponsored by the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies, the Center for Jewish History, NY, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County.

“This important exhibition will allow the museum to so something it does very well, and that is to be a place where difficult conversations can take place. Szyk’s work will prompt frank discussion about antisemitism and the memory of the Holocaust at a time when antisemitism is once again on the rise in our country,” said Carey Weber, executive director of the Fairfield University Art Museum. She noted that “Szyk’s work also cast a light on systemic racism in America, as well as the troubling legacy of fascism and Nazism among the far-right.” She added that the Museum is “thrilled that this grant from Connecticut Humanities allows us to bring Arthur Szyk’s powerful artwork to the public, along with a wide array of complementary free programs that will offer further platforms for discussion and engagement around these issues.”

For more information about this exhibition and the its complementary programs, visit the exhibition webpage www.fairfield.edu/museum/szyk/ The museum is free and open to the public. 

PHOTO: Arthur Szyk

CAP: Artist Arthur Szyk, circa 1945