Scenes from the Collection

Through November 2023

Coney Island showcases photographs of the famed amusement park from the late 1930s through the late 1950s by Martin Elkort, Morris Engel, Sid Grossman, Sidney Kerner, Arthur Leipzig, and Leon Levinstein, along with two “Coney Island” style carousel horses created by master carvers Charles Carmel and Marcus Charles Illions. 

Ongoing

Many of the enthralling works in the Jewish Museum's collection express aspects of Jewish culture, history, or values, while also exploring universal issues of the relationship of art to society. When widely varied artworks are presented together, multiple meanings and conversations emerge. Some of the resulting dialogues revolve around the ways in which traditions are maintained, transformed, reinterpreted, or transcended. Others explore the ever-changing nature of identity and the pursuit of spirituality—whether in the performance of ritual, the study of mysticism, or the creation of an artwork.

Also on view: 

Marc Chagall’s painting Le Père (1911), a rare portrait of the artist's father which was recently restituted to the descendants of its original owner, will be on view in the Constellations galleries February 16, 2023, through January 1, 2024 as a special loan to the Jewish Museum. Learn more.

Through April 17, 2023

Masterpieces and Curiosities offers an in-depth examination of a single object or group of objects within a larger cultural, historical, or aesthetic context. Masterpieces and Curiosities: The Benguiat Collection features a selection of works from the Museum’s H. Ephraim and Mordecai Benguiat Family Collection. This collection, which includes 300 examples of decorative and ceremonial art related to Jewish culture, is one of the formative groups of the Jewish Museum’s collection.

Support for Masterpieces and Curiosities: The Benguiat Collection is provided in part by The Coby Foundation, Ltd.

Through March 2025

The Jewish Museum’s collection includes portraits dating from antiquity to the present, most either by Jewish artists or of Jewish sitters. The current installation Artists on Artists explores artists’ portrayals of other artists and themselves. The works included offer a historical view of Jewish identities in all their many facets: religion and secularity, ethnicity and universality, fantasy and materiality, otherness and self-assertion.

Through October 1, 2023

After “The Wild”: Contemporary Art from The Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation Collection is an exhibition highlighting contemporary artworks by 47 intergenerational and internationally based artists made between 1963 and 2023. The exhibition begins in the First Floor Galleries and continues on the Third Floor with works by Luca Buvoli, Tony Cragg, Eva Hild, Theo Jansen, Mel Kendrick, Anne Lilly, and Philip Taaffe.

Ongoing

Taxonomies is organized as a contemporary Wunderkammer (Cabinet of Wonders), a historical style of display first popularized during the Renaissance and recognized as a precursor of today’s museums. This scene is crowded with works of art and artifacts of various origins and materials, revealing interesting relationships between objects in the collection.

Ongoing

An important part of the Museum’s collection is explored in this section: the National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting (NJAB). With more than 4,000 holdings, the archive is the largest and most comprehensive body of broadcast materials on Jewish culture in the United States.

Breaking the Glass: Jewish Weddings on Television brings together excerpts from television and streaming programs from 1974 to 2020 such as Rhoda, Will & Grace, The Nanny, New Girl, and Unorthodox, among others, that illustrate the depth and the range of television depictions of this important life-cycle event.