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The Jewish Museum
Address: The Jewish Museum
1109 5th Ave at 92nd St
New York, NY 10128
Phone: 212-423-3200
Working hours:
| Sunday | 11 am - 6 pm |
|---|---|
| Monday | 11 am - 6 pm |
| Tuesday | Closed |
| Wednesday | Closed |
| Thursday | 11 am - 8 pm |
| Friday | 11 am - 6 pm |
| Saturday | 11 am - 6 pm* |
*The Cooper Shop is closed on Saturdays.
On Sunday, September 25, 2022, the Museum is open from 11 am - 3 pm.
On Monday, September 26, 2022, the Museum is closed.
About the Jewish Museum
The Jewish Museum was the first institution of its kind in the United States and is one of the oldest Jewish museums in the world. The Museum maintains a unique collection of nearly 30,000 works of art, ceremonial objects, and media reflecting the global Jewish experience over more than 4,000 years. Located on New York City's Museum Mile, in the landmarked Warburg mansion, the Jewish Museum is a welcoming home to an ever-changing and dynamic range of opportunities for exploring multiple facets of the global Jewish experience.
Jewish Museum History
The Jewish Museum was founded in 1904 in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, where it was housed for more than four decades.
Judge Mayer Sulzberger1 donated a collection of ceremonial art to the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary with the suggestion that a Jewish museum be formed. Subsequent gifts and purchases have helped to form the Museum’s distinguished collection, one of the largest and most important of its kind in the world. In 1944, Frieda Schiff Warburg2, widow of the prominent businessman and philanthropist Felix Warburg3, who had been a Seminary trustee, donated the family mansion4 at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street to the Seminary for use as a museum.
Designed in the French Gothic chateau-style by architect Charles P.H. Gilbert, the original building was completed in 1908, and has been the home of the Museum since 1947. A sculpture court was installed alongside the Mansion in 1959, and the Albert A. List Building was added in 1963 to provide additional exhibition and program space.
In 1990, a major expansion and renovation project was undertaken; upon completion in June 1993, the expansion doubled the Museum’s gallery space, created new space for educational programs and provided significant improvements in public amenities.
For more than a century, the Jewish Museum has illuminated art and Jewish culture from ancient times to the present, offering intellectually engaging and educational exhibitions and programs for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Timeline
- 1900
1904
On January 20, 1904, Judge Mayer Sulzberger donates a collection of Jewish ceremonial art to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. The newly formed museum is the first institution of its kind in the United States and one of the first in the world.
Through the efforts of Seminary President Cyrus Adler and Felix M. Warburg, the Museum purchases the important collection of 400 Jewish ceremonial objects assembled in the 19th century by Turkish art dealer Hadji Ephraim Benguiat.
1931
The collection is installed in the Seminary’s new Jacob H. Schiff Library as the Museum of Jewish Ceremonial Objects.
1939
The imperiled Jewish community of Danzig (Gdansk, Poland) sends ritual objects from its synagogues and homes to New York City for safekeeping. Some 350 of these objects, entrusted to the Museum, are later incorporated into the collection.
1941
Dr. Harry G. Friedman presents a major collection of ceremonial objects, paintings, sculptures, prints, and manuscripts to the Museum. His continuing donations, eventually numbering more than 600 works, include pieces from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
1944
Frieda Schiff Warburg gives the Seminary her family residence at 1109 Fifth Avenue to house the Museum.
1947
The Jewish Museum inaugurates its home in the former Warburg mansion. Curator Stephen Kayser declares that it’s the Museum’s mission to use the fine arts to explore the substance of Jewish life and history. He defines the Museum’s audience as “the American community,” which should “be given insight into the traditions, history, legends, and aspirations of the Jewish people.”
The Museum purchases the rare and important collection of Polish Judaica assembled by Benjamin and Rose Mintz.
1952
One hundred and twenty ceremonial objects, looted by the Nazis and recovered by the United States Military Government, are presented to the Museum by Jewish Cultural Reconstruction.
1956
Dr. Abraham Kanof and his wife, Dr. Frances Pascher, establish the Tobe Pascher Workshop for the creation of Jewish ceremonial art in a modern style.
1957
To mark its 10th anniversary at 1109 Fifth Avenue, the Museum presents a path-breaking contemporary art exhibition, Artists of the New York School: Second Generation, featuring works by 23 emerging artists including Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and George Segal.
Alan Solomon becomes Director and confirms the Museum’s commitment to exhibiting the work of New York City’s most advanced artists.
1963
A building expansion, underwritten by Vera and Albert A. List, opens, providing flexible modern galleries and an outdoor sculpture court.
The Museum organizes the Recent American Synagogue Architecture exhibition, including designs by Louis Kahn and Barnett Newman.
1964
The Museum presents Jasper Johns’ first solo museum exhibition.
1965
Sam Hunter becomes Director of the Jewish Museum.
1966
Primary Structures, the landmark exhibition that defined the Minimalist movement; the first major exhibition of the paintings of Ad Reinhardt; and the exhibition Lower East Side: Portal to American Life are organized.
1967
The exhibition Masada: Struggle for Freedom is presented.
1968
Karl Katz becomes Director of the Jewish Museum.
1970
Software, a pioneering exhibition about information technology and interactive art, is organized.
1971
The Museum opens a permanent installation of archaeological artifacts.
1972
Joy Ungerleider becomes Director.
The Museum negotiates the acquisition of nearly 600 ancient artifacts found in Israel, and expands its focus to encompass all of Jewish culture.
1975
Jewish Experience in the Art of the 20th Century is presented.
1978
The retrospective exhibition Jack Levine: Paintings, Drawings and Graphics is presented.
1980
Jacques Lipchitz’s sculpture The Sacrifice is prominently installed.
1981
Joan Rosenbaum becomes Director of the Jewish Museum.
The Museum’s archaeological holdings expand with the gift of Max and Betty Ratner’s antiquities collection.
The National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting, with a mission to collect, preserve, and exhibit television, cable television, and radio programs related to the Jewish experience, is founded at the Museum through support from the Charles H. Revson Foundation.
1983
Kings and Citizens: The History of the Jews in Denmark, 1622 – 1983 is presented.
1984
The Precious Legacy: Judaic Treasures from the Czechoslovak State Collections is presented.
1985
The Museum honors Dorothy Rodgers for her role in inspiring the development of a permanent collection exhibition.
The plaster version of George Segal’s The Holocaust is acquired, becoming one of the Museum’s signature works.
1986
Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy is organized.
1987
The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth and Justice, an acclaimed exhibition integrating the visual arts and social history, is presented.
1990
A renovation and expansion project, designed by architect Kevin Roche, begins.
1992
In collaboration with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum establishes the New York Jewish Film Festival.
Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews is presented.
1993
The Museum re-opens in expanded and renovated quarters. Inaugural presentations include From the Inside Out: Eight Contemporary Artists and the permanent exhibition, Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey.
The Museum initiates annual December 25 family programming.
1996
The exhibitions Too Jewish?: Challenging Traditional Identities and Marc Chagall: 1907 – 1917 are presented.
1998
An Expressionist in Paris: The Paintings of Chaim Soutine is organized.
2000
The newly reinstalled Floor 4 galleries of the permanent collection exhibition, Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey open, accompanied by thematic audio guides.
2001
Marc Chagall: Early Works from Russian Collections is presented.
2002
The exhibitions New York: Capital of Photography and the widely discussed Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art are presented.
2003
The exhibitions Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting and Schoenberg, Kandinsky, and the Blue Rider are organized.
The newly reinstalled Floor 3 galleries of Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey open.
2004
Centennial year celebrations are highlighted by the exhibition Modigliani: Beyond the Myth.
2005
The exhibitions The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and Their Salons, Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak, and Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama are presented.
2006
The Jewish Museum marks Joan Rosenbaum’s 25th anniversary as director.
The exhibitions Eva Hesse: Sculpture and Alex Katz Paints Ada are organized.
2007
The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend, the first major American survey of the artist’s work since 1980, is organized.
A new interactive children’s exhibition, Archaeology Zone: Discovering Treasures from Playgrounds to Palaces, opens.
2008
Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940 – 1976, the first major U. S. exhibition in 20 years to rethink Abstract Expressionism, is organized by the Jewish Museum in collaboration with the Albright-Knox Gallery and the Saint Louis Art Museum.
2009
Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention is presented.
2010
Houdini: Art and Magic, the first major art museum exhibition to examine Houdini’s life, is organized.
2011
Claudia Gould becomes Director of the Jewish Museum.
Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore and The Radical Camera: New York’s Photo League, 1936 – 1951 are presented.
The New York Jewish Film Festival marks its 20th anniversary.
2012
The exhibitions Kehinde Wiley/The World Stage: Israel; Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890 – 1940; and Crossing Borders: Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries are presented.
2013
The exhibitions As it were … So to speak: A Museum Collection in Dialogue with Barbara Bloom; Six Things: Sagmeister & Walsh; Jack Goldstein × 10,000; Art Spiegelman’s Co-Mix: A Retrospective; and Chagall: Love, War, and Exile are presented.
2014
The exhibitions Other Primary Structures; Mel Bochner: Strong Language; From the Margins: Lee Krasner and Norman Lewis, 1945 – 1952; and Helena Rubinstein: Beauty Is Power are presented.
The Jewish Museum launches new graphic identity and redesigned website with design firm Sagmeister & Walsh.
2015
The exhibitions Repetition and Difference; Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television; and The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film are presented.
2016
The New York Jewish Film Festival marks its 25th anniversary with record attendance.
Russ & Daughters at the Jewish Museum opens, a restaurant and take-out appetizing counter.
The exhibitions Isaac Mizrahi: An Unruly History; Roberto Burle Marx: Brazilian Modernist; and Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design are presented.
The Jewish Museum launches its inaugural Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the exhibition Take Me (I'm Yours).
2017
After nearly 25 years, the Museum's permanent collection exhibition Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey closes, makinng way for Scenes from the Collection.
The exhibitions Florinne Stettheimer:Painting Poetry and Modigliani Unmasked are presented.
2018
The Jewish Museum opens Scenes from the Collection a dynamic new exhibition of the collection, transforming the entire third floor with nearly 600 works from antiquities to contemporary art.
Information and photos taken from the site: thejewishmuseum.org