The Jewish Museum of Maryland is set to open a new exhibit, “Modernisms,” on Aug. 10, curated by art historian Dr. J. Susan Isaacs.
The name “Modernisms” comes from the combination of the different creative practices during the Modernism movement in the 20th century, including Cubism, German Expressionism, Surrealism and more.
Issacs told Baltimore Jewish Times that the original idea for the exhibit came from an essay titled “Brief Burst of Glory: The Founding and Flourishing of the First and Last School of Jewish Artists In Baltimore” by Jacob Glushakow in 1998. The artists mentioned were Glushakow, as well as Florence Austrian, Mervin Jules, Rueben Kramer, Herman Maril, Karl Metzler and four other artists. Issacs added four more artists: Gladys Goldstein, Perna Krick, Bennard Perlman and Peter Scholleck.
“I contacted George Ciscle. George is somebody who’s been in the art world in Baltimore for very many years — I’ve known him since like 1991 and ’92 — and I emailed him,” said Isaacs. “He put me on to Peter because he has been working with his daughter for many years to try to organize this collection and find homes for a lot of the work.
“So, I started with the article, and that is 95% of who these artists are,” Issacs added. “I added four more, one of whom was in the collection, I just didn’t know it.”
As one walks through the exhibit, Issacs highlighted that most of each artist’s work flows into the others, an example of how their different art styles meshed in the Modernist era. However, each piece is different from the others through its framing to the materials the artist used.
What made this group of artists unique, as outlined in the essay, is that the group would get together and critique each other’s artwork, although not all the artists featured were in the group. Additionally, almost all of the artists in some way studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, whether they graduated from the college or only attended the classes for one week, according to Isaacs.
“It really was the art of their time. Whether they were figurative or abstractionists, it was the art of their time. There were other artists in Baltimore who were very conservative and doing very conservative work, but it wasn’t this group,” Isaacs said.
The opening of “Modernisms” is a part of the museum’s 2025 transformation, which redesigned the architecture of the building and added immersive gallery spaces, as well as a new audiovisual production studio. The exhibit is open to the public from Aug. 10 until February 2026.
mresnicow@midatlanticmedia.com
