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On View:
August 22 – December 22, 2022
A remarkable window into Europe before World War II will be seen by the public for the first time when Street Visions: Europe, 1934 — Photographs by Richard J. Scheuer goes on display on August 22, 2022 in the Backman Gallery at the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.
Richard Scheuer’s black and white photographs depict ordinary people going about their daily lives in pre-war Europe with remarkable clarity and empathy, capturing the continent on the brink of radical change. Scheuer (1917-2008) had just turned 17 when he took an eight-week tour of Europe in the summer of 1934. He traveled the continent, making stops in France, Italy, Yugoslavia, and the cities of Budapest, Warsaw, and Moscow. His subjects ranged from Basque markets in southwest France to artisan bazaars in Yugoslavia, from the outdoor baths in Budapest to Warsaw’s lively Jewish quarter. In the USSR he captured a street parade, a girls’ kazoo band, and theatrical productions including the Moscow State Yiddish Theater and the Moscow Children’s Theater.
Scheuer’s 1934 negatives were developed shortly after his return to the US, but never enlarged until they were digitized, restored, and printed in 2018. Scheuer went on to a successful career in real estate, and service as Chairman of the Board of both the Jewish Museum in New York and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
The Dr. Bernard Heller Museum is a natural showcase for these newly recovered treasures which are being introduced here, 88 years after they were created.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue.
A webinar about this exhibition will take place in late November – early December. Please visit huc.edu/HUCConnect for more information.