As the university celebrated the launch of a PhD program where scholars from across the world will study American history, politics, and culture from a transatlantic perspective, Mrs. Strauss focused on the impact of German-Jewish emigres on America’s intellectual and cultural development.
Before Erich Wolfgang Korngold was first called to Hollywood by his fellow Austrian émigré, the actor and director Max Reinhardt, he was a celebrated child prodigy and an up-and-coming composer of serious orchestral music who had had works premiered by artists including Artur Schnabel
Famous for his tenure with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg was already an important conductor before he left Germany. At the Frankfurt Opera, Steinberg had conducted the premiere of the first 12-tone opera, Arnold Schoenberg’s “Von Heute auf Morgen.”
With a career that went from “discovering” Marlene Dietrich to representing young American actors Sylvester Stallone and F. Murray Abraham, Hanns Wolters was a theatrical agent and impressario who fled the Nazis, emigrated to Palestine, and ultimately arrived in New York – using his great dramatic flair to improvise productions all along the way.
This exhibit takes a close look at the experiences various artists underwent prior to their emigration and explores the phenomenon of emigration itself as an existential experience. The lives of these artists are as diverse as their artistic styles, but there are some commonalities: Most went from country to country, often unable to secure work or the right to stay.
