CHASING PORTRAITS: A Family's Quest for their Lost Art Heritage
Narrative Synopsis -
Moshe Rynecki (1881-1943) painted the Jewish community in Warsaw, Poland in
the 1920s and 1930s. He documented religious scenes (e.g. men studying
the Talmud), images from everyday life (e.g., women doing household chores),
and ultimately scenes from inside the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1939, when the
Nazis invaded Poland, Moshe realized his life's work was at great risk of
being destroyed. In an effort to protect and preserve his work he bundled
his collection of over 800 paintings into a number of packages and
distributed them to gentile friends in and around Warsaw. He told his family
where the paintings were hidden so that after the war the family could
collect the bundles and make the collection whole once again. Moshe
perished in a Nazi concentration camp. When his surviving family went to
retrieve the paintings, they were only able to find a single bundle. Today
the Rynecki family has just over 100 of the original 800+ paintings; the
rest of the collection is scattered or lost. Some paintings are at the
Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Other paintings are in private
collections in Canada, Israel, New York, and Los Angeles. It is
unclear how many of these private institutions or individuals obtained these
paintings. CHASING PORTRAITS: A Family’s Quest for their Lost Art
Heritage, is a 9 minute documentary film trailer about the Rynecki
family’s quest for the lost, stolen, and missing Moshe Rynecki paintings.
Goals and Activities of the Project - While Moshe Rynecki has primarily been spoken
of as a Holocaust victim, the Rynecki family strives to broaden the public’s
understanding of who he was by emphasizing his contributions to the Jewish
cultural community. His paintings aren’t merely relics from the
Holocaust or of Polish Jewry; his art addresses issues of Jewish identity,
religion, and community. We believe that the combination of the
paintings themselves, the books, the website, the documentary film, and film
shorts we intend to include on our website, will promote and prompt
discussions across such topics as religion, culture, history, Jewish
studies, what it means to be a Jewish artist, the Holocaust, war, looting,
and issues of provenance. We foresee these conversations taking place
in the Jewish community, in classrooms, in academia, and in the art world,
where the relationship between war and cultural artifacts continues to be a
thorny and difficult topic.
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Donations are tax deductible. Gifts over $250 will receive a letter for tax purposes.As a fiscal sponsor, The National Center for Jewish Film serves as a non-profit tax-exempt umbrella organization that accepts and administers contributions made to select film projects. Fiscal sponsorship allows filmmakers to solicit and receive tax deductible donations from individuals and gifts from foundations without having to create a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.
