Dr. Dellheim's work explores areas of cultural, social, political, and business history; he has written on diverse subjects ranging from architecture and painting to company cultures and baseball.
Charles Dellheim, PhD, will present “Was Modern Art Jewish: Jewish Art Collectors and Nazi Looters”, Nov. 2 at Fairfield University's Adolph and Ruth Schnurmacher Scholar-in-Residence lecture, hosted by the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies and the Congregation B'nai Israel of Bridgeport. Free and open to the public, this event will take place on Thursday, Nov. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kelley Center Presentation Room.
Since the late 1990s, there has been a dramatic resurgence of interest in the fate of Nazi-stolen art. Even so, dwelling on the darkly enthralling story of how Nazis and collaborators pillaged massive quantity of works of art from Jews obscures crucial questions: How and why, against all odds, did Jewish outsiders suddenly acquire so many masterpieces in the first place? How and why did Jewish dealers, collectors, critics, and artists come to play a pivotal role in the hard-won triumph of modern art?
This lecture raises these questions by focusing on the story of the rise and fall of a small number of closely interlocked individuals who became leading figures in the art world in Europe and the United States. It looks at their family backgrounds, their paths to art-dealing and collecting, their relationships with the artists they represented, and the fate of their art collections under Nazi dominion.
Born and raised in New York City, Dr. Dellheim is the author of Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made Art World Modern (2021). A professor of history and Jewish Studies at Boston University (BU), he earned his doctorate in modern European cultural history at Yale University. He previously served as founding director of the Kilachand Honors College and as the inaugural Arvind and Chandan Nandlal Kilachand Professor at BU. His work explores areas of cultural, social, political, and business history; he has written on diverse subjects ranging from architecture and painting to company cultures and baseball.
Dr. Dellheim's recent book, Belonging and Betrayal, was named one of the best books of the year by the Times Literary Supplement (London), Kirkus Review, and Artnet. He is also the author of The Face of the Past: The Preservation of the Medieval Inheritance in Victorian England, and The Disenchanted Isle: Mrs. Thatcher’s Capitalist Revolution. Dr. Dellheim has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Harvard Business School, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
Reservations are requested for this lecture. Please contact the Bennett Center for Judaic Studies at bennettcenter@fairfield.edu or call 203-254-4000, ext. 2066. For more information about other Bennett Center events, visit fairfield.edu/bennettprograms.
