Religious Studies in the News
Ruth Weisberg Lecture, Nov. 1, 7pm: Historical and Contemporary Jewish Identity in Art
The Printmaking Program in the UTK School of Art and The Fern and Manfred Steinfeld Program in Judaic Studies are pleased to host Los Angeles-based Jewish-American artist Ruth Weisberg for a week-long printmaking project and two public lectures in the Fall of 2011. Weisberg’s visit is also supported through the Haines-Morris Endowment in the College of Arts and Sciences.
During her one week visit Ms. Weisberg will present two public lectures and work on studio projects in the UTK Print Workshop. On Tuesday Nov. 1st at 7pm she will present a lecture on “Historical and Contemporary Jewish Identity in Art,” in the Hodges Library Auditorium. On Thursday Nov. 3 at 7pm Weisberg will lecture on her on her own work in Art and Architecture room 109. These events are free and open to the public.
Professor Ruth Weisberg teaches drawing and printmaking at the USC Roski School of Fine Arts. From 1995 to 2010, she served as dean of the Roski School, and, before that, she served as chair of the school's studio arts department and as acting associate dean for the School of Architecture and Fine Arts. She received her M.A. from the University of Michigan, and her Laurea in Painting and Printmaking from the Academia di Belle Arti, Perugia, Italy.
Weisberg works primarily in painting, drawing and printmaking. Her work is widely exhibited nationally and internationally, with her most recent exhibitions including “Ruth Weisberg: Unfurled” at the Skirball Cultural Institute, Los Angeles, and “Michigan Collects Weisberg” at Eastern Michigan University. Additionally, Weisberg’s work is in the collections of major museums, including the Getty Center; Norton Simon Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Smithsonian Institution; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Jewish Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Harvard University; Biblioteca Nazionale d’Italia (Rome); and Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. A color lithograph she did at the University of Tennessee in 1992 is in the collection of the Ewing Gallery as well as the Knoxville Museum of Art.
She has written more than 60 articles, reviews and catalogue essays, and regularly lectures and curates exhibitions. She has received numerous honors, including the USC Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award for Creative Work, the College Art Association’s Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, a Senior Research Fulbright combined with a visiting artist residency at the American Academy in Rome, a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, and a Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa, from Hebrew Union College. In the 1990s Ms. Weisberg was commissioned to create “The Open Door Haggadah” for the Central Conference of American Rabbis. The last artist commissioned to do so was Leonard Baskin in the 1970s. Weisberg has also taught a graduate seminar Jewish Culture several times for the University of Southern California.