Arthur Szyk (American, b. Poland, 1894–1951) is remembered today as an artist and illustrator whose work ranged from illustrations for traditional Jewish and Polish folktales and religious texts to watercolor designs for political cartoons that were regularly featured on the cover of Collier’s magazine throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
The exhibition Arthur Szyk: Miniature Paintings and Modern Illuminations, will continue at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco to March 27, 2011. It explores Szyk’s artistry over a productive career and returns the artist to the Legion of Honor, where a selection of his watercolors was shown seventy years ago, in 1941. This single-gallery presentation of 71 works on paper by Szyk also includes a handful of comparative works by Léon Bakst, Aubrey Beardsley and Albrecht Dürer.
The Exhibition Szyk used a highly detailed and decorative style of illumination throughout his career, finding it an appropriate means of expression for projects as varied as political caricature and propaganda, designs for honorific medals and badges, and illustrations for book projects ranging from important religious texts to literary classics. The exhibition is organized chronologically, allowing visitors to witness the artist’s continued dedication to this very personal style, from his early works in Paris, and throughout his later career in Lodz, London, Ottawa, New York and New Canaan (Connecticut). Szyk’s renowned Passover Haggadah (1940) is included in a special section of the exhibition devoted to the artist’s book illustration projects; also included are designs for Hans Christian Andersen’s Andersen Fairy Tales (1945) and Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1946).
Installed at the end of the exhibition are some of the drawings for one of his last projects, a series of stamp album covers, commissioned upon the founding of the United Nations in 1945. In this series, Szyk combined symbols and allusions to personages past and present that referred to the unique histories of the subject countries that were all early UN member states, and countries with which Szyk had a deep personal connection.
The Artist In all areas of his art, Szyk’s Polish and Jewish heritage remained central, and his attention to detail betrayed considerable historical research into his craft. Like many of his artist peers, Szyk understood that images could be powerful tools, used to incite change within society. However, he broke from contemporary Modernist ideals by avoiding abstraction in favor of figurative work. Szyk preferred to work in elaborate detail, recalling the intricate illumination present in medieval manuscripts, Near-Eastern miniature paintings and traditional Polish folk arts.
On January 30, 2011, 2:00 pm, the Gould Theater at the Legion of Honor is presenting a symposium devoted to the prolific works of Arthur Szyk, particularly the influential religious and political works produced between 1934 and 1945, exploring the artist’s commitment to the ideals of social justice.
Whether combating anti-Semitism and Nazism or advocating for the rescue of European Jewry and civil rights for African Americans, Szyk combined beauty and polemic to spur his audience first to righteous indignation and then to decisive action.
Top: Design for illustration in the book Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1945), The King and Queen of Roses Transparent and opaque watercolor Collection of Irvin Ungar
Above: To the French People in Comradeship-in-Arms; The People of America (Joan of Arc), 1942. Transparent and opaque watercolor, Collection of Irvin Ungar
Is there anyone who gives house room to legions of hand-me-downs and souvenirs without affection for all of them? In the sort of place where I reside now (I can’t decide whether “live” is the right word), everyone has had to make forced decisions about how to do what real estate agents like to call downsizing.
When I voiced my worry over this subject to my daughter, having repeatedly begged my offspring to give me clues as to their respective wishes and hopes, she said, “Mom, just make an inventory. Write down all the information, and then we can deal with it.” Even though she grew up in a house with at least as many of these things in it (before we had to downsize to move 800+ miles), she doesn’t seem able to remember what the tag sale days were like. All three of our children expressed regret to see some things set out for sale because they didn’t have room to house them themselves, and neither did we. However, in the 15 years since, they seem to have forgotten those belated moans. Not just the regrets, but how many hundreds of hours would be involved in an inventory. Is she kidding?
Looking down over the couch in our living room is a several times great-grandfather. His portrait (according to family tradition on my mother’s side) was painted in 1812. His stock and high collar, and the style of the painter somewhat reminiscent of Rembrandt Peale, seem to confirm this. The frame is hideous, heavy, doubtless not contemporary. The whole thing is about 4’ x 3’. His wife, painted by a primitive and probably itinerant, artist, still resides in a crate in the basement. Same frame, same size, only she and the painting are, to put it politely, homely. The picture is supposed to have been painted at the same time, and again, the clothes would confirm this.
How many of our children have wall-space, let alone a taste for the antique to hang these two? There isn’t a thing from either my nor my husband’s side of the family (with the exception of a small magnifying glass) that can claim that kind of age. Darn it, the things are heirlooms. That’s really nothing to what is carefully preserved in a large square coffee table with a glass top and a flocking-lined drawer. My mother loved to collect tiny things just because they were tiny. Pueblo miniature animals, for instance. There’s a small cast brass cannon complete with hole for applying the match that looks as if it once had been fired that was a gift to my late husband from a French friend and colleague, now gone too.
There are the small boxes I started to collect when my mother let me have my grandmother’s silver pillboxes. I’ve added to them over the years. There’s a tiny Zuni spirit pot I bought when I was managing a gift shop in an Indian museum; two netsuke that were an impulse purchase on our last trip to New York City. And that isn’t all, but pretty soon, if I don’t stop, I’ll have already listed a third of the inventory my daughter suggests.
Birthday presents from my children’s first allowances, Mothers’ Day cards, school pictures, my husband’s letters from over 20 years as an export sales manager for his company, etc., etc. Every household has these things. We did find a home for my great grandparents’ Civil War letters at UNC Chapel Hill, but what about…? There really are days when I feel as if I were in thrall to objects, even as I remember my mother’s oft-repeated remark, “They’re just things.”
In a Stateline interview, Oregon Governor-elect John Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, says the nation’s health care system is inefficient and unsustainable.
Oregon Governor-elect John Kitzhaber, a Democrat who was inaugurated in Salem on Monday, is no stranger to the state’s top political office: He was a two-term governor between 1995 and 2003. In November, he defeated Republican Chris Dudley to win an unprecedented third term as chief executive.
An emergency-room physician by background, Kitzhaber, 63, also is no stranger to the nation’s health care system, which he sees as costly, ineffective and unsustainable. He intends to tackle the challenge right away in Oregon, vowing to “fundamentally change the way health care is organized and delivered” in his state.
Stateline caught up with Kitzhaber December 27 in Portland to discuss his plans, as well as the new federal health care law. An edited transcript of the interview follows.
Q. How does your background as an emergency-room doctor inform your perspective on health care policy?
A. When I was (Oregon) Senate president, making decisions at the legislative level that disenfranchised people from coverage, for a lot of my colleagues it was a sterile accounting exercise.
When I went back to my ER (after serving in the Legislature), I started seeing some of the people come in who actually had lost coverage because of our legislative decisions. One man in particular had had a massive stroke because he couldn’t access medication for his blood pressure. It gave me a real interesting perspective about the relationship between policy decisions and what happens to people at the point of delivery.
Q. You’ve said that the new federal health care law is health insurance reform, not health care reform. Can you elaborate on that?
A. Most of that legislation — and most of the health care debate in America for the last 50 years — has been how to pay for health care. I don’t think the problem is how you pay for health care. It’s what we’re buying. We’re buying a product that is very ineffective, very inefficient, and doesn’t have real impact on population health.
Our population health statistics in this country are a little bit better than Cuba’s, and we spend huge sums of money. So, ultimately, we have to change the way health care is organized and delivered, and we need to recognize that the objective of the health care system is not simply to finance medical care. It’s to keep people healthy.
(Regarding the federal health care law), I’m a big supporter of the bill because, at the end of the day, people do have to have a way to pay for health care. You do have to have financial access. But there’s nothing in the bill that’s going to control costs.
What we’re hoping to do here in Oregon is fundamentally change the way health care is organized and delivered — to shift that focus from after-the-fact … to prevention and wellness and community-based management of chronic conditions.
If we can get more flexibility with how we spend those new (federal) dollars when they come in, we want to finance a different delivery model.
Here are some paragraphs from the prepared remarks delivered by Fed Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, before the Senate’s Committee on the Budget, Washington, DC on January 7, 2011
The Economic Outlook The economic recovery that began a year and a half ago is continuing, although, to date, at a pace that has been insufficient to reduce the rate of unemployment significantly.The initial stages of the recovery, in the second half of 2009 and in early 2010, were largely attributable to the stabilization of the financial system, expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, and a powerful inventory cycle. Growth slowed somewhat this past spring as the impetus from fiscal policy and inventory building waned and as European sovereign debt problems led to increased volatility in financial markets.
More recently, however, we have seen increased evidence that a self-sustaining recovery in consumer and business spending may be taking hold. In particular, real consumer spending rose at an annual rate of 2-1/2 percent in the third quarter of 2010, and the available indicators suggest that it likely expanded at a somewhat faster pace in the fourth quarter. Business investment in new equipment and software has grown robustly in recent quarters, albeit from a fairly low level, as firms replaced aging equipment and made investments that had been delayed during the downturn. However, the housing sector remains depressed, as the overhang of vacant houses continues to weigh heavily on both home prices and construction, and nonresidential construction is also quite weak. Overall, the pace of economic recovery seems likely to be moderately stronger in 2011 than it was in 2010.
Although recent indicators of spending and production have generally been encouraging, conditions in the labor market have improved only modestly at best. After the loss of nearly 8-1/2 million jobs in 2008 and 2009, private payrolls expanded at an average of only about 100,000 per month in 2010 — a pace barely enough to accommodate the normal increase in the labor force and, therefore, insufficient to materially reduce the unemployment rate. On a more positive note, a number of indicators of job openings and hiring plans have looked stronger in recent months, and initial claims for unemployment insurance declined through November and December. Notwithstanding these hopeful signs, with output growth likely to be moderate in the next few quarters and employers reportedly still reluctant to add to payrolls, considerable time likely will be required before the unemployment rate has returned to a more normal level. Persistently high unemployment, by damping household income and confidence, could threaten the strength and sustainability of the recovery. Moreover, roughly 40 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for six months or more. Long-term unemployment not only imposes exceptional hardships on the jobless and their families, but it also erodes the skills of those workers and may inflict lasting damage on their employment and earnings prospects.
The Downton Abbey estate stands a splendid example of Victorian confidence and mettle, its family enduring for generations and its staff a well-oiled machine of propriety. But change is afoot at Downton — change far surpassing the new electric lights and telephone.
A crisis of inheritance threatens to displace the resident Crawley family, in spite of the best efforts of the noble and compassionate Earl, Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville, Miss Austen Regrets); his American heiress wife, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern); his comically implacable, opinionated mother, Violet (Maggie Smith, David Copperfield); and his beautiful, eldest daughter, Mary, intent on charting her own course.
Reluctantly, the family is forced to welcome its heir apparent, the self-made and proudly modern Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), himself none too happy about the new arrangements. As Matthew’s bristly relationship with Mary begins to head up, hope for the future of Downton’s dynasty takes shape. But when petty jealousies and ambitions grow among the family and the staff, scheming and secrets — viewed as both delicious and dangerous — threaten to derail the scramble to preserve Downton Abbey. Created and written by Oscar-winner Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), Downton Abbey offers a spot-on portrait of a vanishing way of life.
Episode Four: At a resplendent garden party, actions and betrayals come home to roost, and important news arrives that dwarfs the issue of inheritance.
Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., director of the National Library of Medicine, and Tenley Albright, M.D. invited distinguished individuals in the medical community to participate in an Ad Hoc Advisory Group and to nominate exemplary physicians for inclusion in Changing the Face of Medicine, an exhibition that celebrates the lives and achievements of America’s women physicians.
Over the last 150 years, thousands of women have pursued a medical degree, have practiced medicine, conducted research, and lived full and rich lives. Their stories and their careers inspire each succeeding generation of women as they open doors, make new discoveries, and change the face of medicine.
It would be impossible to recognize the achievements and contributions of every women physician. We hope that by examining this exhibition, you will consider the woman physicians here as examples of the fuller fabric of women’s contributions to medicine and their personal achievements in society.
If you know of a woman physician who you think should be part of this project, we invite you to “Share Your Story”, on the exhibition Web site and at the exhibition’s Activity Zone.
Discover the many ways that women have influenced and enhanced the practice of medicine. The individuals featured here provide an intriguing glimpse of the broader community of women doctors who are making a difference. The National Library of Medicine is pleased to present this exhibition honoring the lives and accomplishments of these women in the hope of inspiring a new generation of medical pioneers.
Find out all you need to know to plan your visit to the exhibition including.
Check out these online interactive activities that use games and learning modules to bring issues of science and medicine to life. The Activities require the use of Macromedia Flash Player. Click the link to download Marcomedia Flash Player or view the text-only version.
Editor’s Note: Since the Committee Hearing was interrupted (because of a kertuffle as to whether a Rep. Sessions had actually taken the oath of office) we can link you to the video and transcripts of the meeting:
If you’ll notice, there’s a certain editorializing of the current actions of the House Rules Committee on their home page. We don’t agree with that editorializing (which we must admit we haven’t seen to this degree in the past) but we’re presenting it as currently displayed on the Rules Committee home page:
England’s Bodleian Library presents a major exhibition, Shelley’s Ghost, dedicated to one of the most renowned literary families in Britain: Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary Shelley, and Mary’s parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Spanning three generations of literary figures, the exhibition charts the history of a family blessed with genius but marred by tragedy.
The Shelley family gave the first two parts of their family archive to the Bodleian in 1893 – 4 and 1946-61, whilst the final part — known as the Abinger papers — was bought by the Library in 2004 through a public appeal. The exhibition will showcase letters, literary manuscripts, rare printed books and pamphlets, portraits and relics.
Star items include Shelley’s own notebooks, a letter of John Keats, William Godwin’s diary and the original manuscripts of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The exhibition will also feature treasures lent by the Pforzheimer Collection of the New York Public Library, many of which have never been on public display in the United Kingdom.
Explore exhibition themes, biographies, the complete Frankenstein notebooks, the exhibition video, an interactive family tree and the exhibition floorplan.
“Shelley’s Ghost tells the story of how the descendents of one of our greatest literary families worked hard to shape their posthumous reputations and widen appreciation of their work. Why do the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft still appeal to us today? We are running this video competition to find out.
“To enter, simply make a short video of yourself performing a text by one of our four featured authors and, importantly, tell us why you chose the author or the work that you did. Choose your own text or here are some suggestions.
“Our favourite video will win a copy of the exhibition book, Shelley’s Ghost: Reshaping the Image of a Literary Family, signed by the authors Stephen Hebron and Elizabeth C. Denlinger.”
If you plan to go to Oxford, England, to see the exhibit before it ends on March 27th, it’s possible to walk where Shelley walked in Oxford using the Library’s trail as a guide. The trail starts at the Bodleian Library so if you plan to visit the exhibition in person simply print a copy of this page and bring it along.
Editor’s Note: Our previously hazel-colored eyes have changed to green, light green at that. We asked our Optometrist, Nina Margolis, O.D., to explain for why this was happening. We have also added a link to the National Institutes of Health article entitled, Your Aging Eyes.
Many people want to change something about themselves, such as improving their looks, their mind, their future. The question, “Can I change my eye color?”, was posed to me recently. As an optometrist I was surprised and, at the same time, yet not. Eye color does change sometimes in our lives, so why not try to control it?
Here are some facts about eye color:
Eye color is based on the number and color of pigment granules (melanin) in our eyes. Newborns often have non-pigmented (blue) eyes, which will change and darken in the first six years of life. More or darker pigment means darker eyes, fewer or lighter granules result in lighter eyes. Hazel eyes can appear to change color, due to less pigment and more effect of the exterior environment.
Eye color can change with puberty, likely due to a genetic component. There may be environmental factors that affect eye color. One study states that 10 — 15% of Caucasian eyes change color as they age. Other races have darker eyes, which do not change significantly with age. As pigment in the iris changes or degrades, the eye color usually lightens. However, hazel or blue eyes can darken.
Slight color changes are a normal and harmless part of the aging process, but dramatic changes may indicate an underlying health problem. Ocular diseases which can cause color change are Horner’s Syndrome, pigmentary glaucoma and Fuch’s heterochromic iridocyclitis. As with most diseases, they are best caught early, as damage is most often irreversible. A visit to the eye doctor is recommended.
Once ocular disease is ruled out, how can one change their eye color? I found several interesting options, several of which were novel.
Soft contact lenses can temporarily change eye color. Be advised that contacts are a foreign object to the eye and can cause discomfort and serious complications; fitting and evaluation by an eye specialist is necessary.
Hypnosis has been reported to change eye color. There have been reports of multiple personality disorders causing the iris to change color. Herbal eye drops reportedly can change eye color, similar to skin and hair lightening herbs. A colon/liver cleanse and a raw food diet reportedly may lighten or brighten the iris eye color.
There is also an eye surgery to implant a colored lens (NewColorIris.com). This procedure is currently being performed in Panama City, Panama, is quite expensive and not FDA approved. The long term effects are not known. However, it is a reversible procedure.
Lastly, there is a new procedure being developed similar to Lasik, involving laser surgery to destroy iris pigment. This will lighten the eye color, but it is irreversible, and again long term effects are not known.
All in all, there are options available to change one’s eye color, ranging from diet to expensive surgery. If one is “lucky” enough to have hazel eyes, eye color may change naturally. Your eyes may lighten as you get older, or you may change eye color by artificial methods. Just remember, long term effects are not known; the most important factors are health and good vision.
Fortunately, the pace of legal reform regarding child-sex-abuse statutes of limitations did not abate in 2010. The logic of eliminating the statute of limitations (“SOL”) for this heinous crime and tort — and of creating an SOL “window” so that past victims can come forward and receive justice — remains irrefutable. Study after study has proven that victims typically need decades to get to the psychological place where they can come forward to tell their stories in court, and that therefore, short statutes of limitations mean there will be no justice at all. Short SOLs also mean that perpetrators and their enablers remain cloaked in secrecy, which is just what is needed to perpetuate cycles of abuse; as the years pass with perpetrators and enablers unidentified, more and more children fall prey.
Even when the need for reform is obvious from a public-policy perspective, however, the law moves forward in fits and starts. This arena is no different. In this column, I’ll cover the top 10 SOL events of 2010. Some represent major steps forward; some, deeply unfortunate developments.
The primary lesson of 2010, for this area of law, is that we are still in an age of experimentation regarding SOL reform, with states implementing a variety of approaches. The other moral of the story is that the Catholic Conferences of the states (the lobbying organizations for the Catholic bishops) are still spending millions to try to stop the inevitability of SOL reform.
Ten Important 2010 Events Relating to Child-Sex-Abuse Statute of Limitations Reform
The following are ten of the most crucial child-sex-abuse SOL-related events of this past year:
1. On May 11, Florida Governor Charlie Crist signed into law a bill that eliminated the SOLs for many sex-abuse victims. The law eliminates “statutes of limitations to the institution of criminal or civil actions relating to sexual battery of a child if the victim is under 16 years of age at the time of the offense.” The elimination of Florida’s SOL for this crime and tort gives every child who is now being abused the ability to file charges and to go to court to obtain damages when he or she is ready. Instead of giving perpetrators and those who protect them the comfort of expired statutes of limitations, Florida has, laudably, made victims abused from the date of enactment into the future the priority.
2. Delaware enacted SOL “window” legislation for child-sex-abuse claims against medical providers. The new law arose in response to revelations about the formerly beloved pediatrician Dr. Earl Bradley, who is alleged to have abused at least 100 children as part of his practice. When the news surfaced about Bradley’s alleged abuse of his patients, it became clear that many of the victims were going to be forestalled from suing by the statutes of limitations. Previously, in 2007, Delaware had enacted its Child Victims Act (CVA), which (1) eliminated the SOL for civil child-sex-abuse cases, and (2) created a two-year window during which civil child-sex-abuse cases on which the SOL had already expired could still be brought in court. The cases that were brought during that SOL window are now moving through the Delaware courts. The CVA did not cover health care providers, as it turned out, and so Delaware enacted this new window for health care providers. Delaware remains the leader in the country for the protection of child sex abuse victims.
3. On January 1, 2010, an Oregon law went into effect that significantly increased opportunities for child-sex-abuse victims to go to court. In 2009, the law — ORS 12.117 — was amended to extend the civil statute of limitations until the victim reaches the age of 40, or until five years after the discovery of a connection between injury and abuse, whichever period is longer. While the law did not go into effect until January 1, it fortunately applies to those victims who were injured before that date.
4. A New York Senate committee finally considered the SOL window legislation that I discussed in this column. Before 2010, the New York Assembly had passed the Child Victims Act three times, but the bill never made it to even a committee hearing in the Senate — largely because Republican Senator Joseph Bruno (who since then has been convicted of mail and wire fraud) had killed the bill. In 2010, Senate Codes Committee Chairman Eric Schneiderman permitted the bill to be openly debated in committee and held a vote. Schneiderman (now the New York Attorney General) voted in favor. Even though the bill did not make it out of committee, the fact that it was even acknowledged in the New York Senate was progress, and the fact that a politician seeking higher office in the state voted quite publicly in favor of the bill indicates a shift in the political calculation regarding SOL reform that bodes well for victims in the future. The Catholic Conference and League also rolled out the laughable claim that their opposition to SOL window legislation somehow vindicates their “civil rights.” There is no right to avoid liability for creating the conditions for child sex abuse, and for geometrically increasing the number of child-sex-abuse victims. Stay tuned for more grandiose “rights” claims as the bishops and their lobbyists come to understand that they are the Sisyphus of SOL politics and not Zeus.
5. In Michigan, battle has been very publicly joined over child-sex-abuse SOL window legislation. As usual, the Catholic Conference is lobbying against it, but the bill’s proponents have found passionate sponsors and remain committed to its passage.
