Roman Vishniac exhibition reveals images of a world that vanished

First UK retrospective of Russian-American photographer has opened at Jewish Museum London and The Photographers' Gallery

By Francine Wolfisz
  • Francine Wolfisz is the Features Editor for Jewish News.
25 October 2018, 11:39 am
Vishniac’s daughter, Mara, posing in front of an election poster for Hindenburg and Hitler that reads “The Marshal and the Corporal: Fight with Us for Peace and Equal Rights”, Berlin, 1933. Credit: Mara Vishniac Kohn
Jewish schoolchildren in Mukacevo, western Ukraine, circa 1935-38. Credit: Mara Vishniac Kohn
Zionist youths, wearing clogs, learning construction techniques in The Netherlands, 1938–39. Credit: Mara Vishniac Kohn
Sara, sitting in bed in a basement dwelling, Warsaw, circa 1935–37. Credit: Mara Vishniac Kohn
Inside the Jewish quarter, Bratislava, circa 1935-38. Credit: Mara Vishniac Kohn

Hands tucked into her thick winter coat, a little Jewish girl stands next to a 1933  election poster for Hindenburg and Hitler, a chilling foreboding of things to come for her community in Berlin.

Taken by her father, Russian-born photographer Roman Vishniac, the stark image precedes many more that poignantly document a politically-changing world.

As the rise of Nazism resulted in the boycotting of German-Jewish businesses and expulsion of children from schools, Vishniac sought to record the crippling effects of antisemitism: poverty, hunger and social degradation.

These captivating images are among hundreds featuring in Roman Vishniac Rediscovered, the first UK retrospective of Vishniac’s work, shown concurrently at Jewish Museum London and The Photographers’ Gallery.

Spanning from the early 1920s to the 1970s, the exhibition reveals the full depth of Vishniac’s work, which includes European modernism, photographs of New York City in the 1940s, and pioneering colour photomicroscopy — scientific photography through the lens of a microscope.

Born in Russia in 1897, Vishniac spent his childhood in Moscow, where he developed a lifelong interest in photography and science.

Following the Bolshevik revolution, he immigrated to Berlin in 1920 and witnessed the rise of Nazism.

In 1935, he was commissioned by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to photograph impoverished communities in Eastern Europe.

The result was one of the most comprehensive photographic records by a single photographer of a vanished world.

Roman Vishniac Rediscovered runs until 24 February 2019 at Jewish Museum London and The Photographers’ Gallery. Details: jewishmuseum.org.uk, thephotographersgallery.org.uk

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