The Art of Si Lewen
From the mahJ to The Met
An announcement from the mahJ in Paris:
“In 2021–2022, the mahJ presented for the first time the drawings of the graphic series The Parade, created in 1950 by Si Lewen (1918–2016). This exhibition rediscovered an artist little known in Europe, who had nevertheless left his mark on the American art scene in the post-war period, with a work combining drawings, paintings and collages. Fifty-five of the sixty-three drawings in The Parade have just entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) collections in New York, where a complete presentation is planned. This striking black-and-white sequel is both a realistic and allegorical account of the rise of Nazism, war, the Holocaust and the reconciliation of peoples. Published in 1957 as a book with very few copies printed, Parade became a rare work until its republication in 2016 under the direction of Art Spiegelman, author of Maus, an admirer of Si Lewen's graphic and narrative talents. In France, it is available at Flammarion.”
CRITIC’S PICK
The New York Times
Article by Will Heinrich, Art Critic for the New York Times- April 18th, 2024
SI LEWEN
Curated by Art Spiegelman
James Cohan Gallery
Mar 23 - Apr 27, 2024
GALLERY EXHIBITION AT:
52 Walker St, New York, NY 10013
James Cohan is pleased to present Si Lewen, curated by Art Spiegelman, on view at the gallery’s 52 Walker Street location from March 23 through April 27, 2024. Polish-born artist Si Lewen (1918-2016) is best known for The Parade, an epic cycle of sixty-three black and white drawings that contends with the horrors the artist witnessed during the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945. Lewen served in the United States Army during the Second World War as part of the Ritchie Boys, a specialized force of native German-speaking G.I.s, some of whom were Jewish refugees who immigrated to the US fleeing Nazi persecution. This strikingly modern and profoundly resonant work is presented at James Cohan alongside important works from Lewen’s oeuvre dating from the early 1950s to the mid-2000s, the majority of which have not been seen for four decades.
This exhibition marks the first time that the full suite of The Parade has been shown in New York, following an exhibition at the Menil Collection in Houston in 2023.
Curator Talk
Art Spiegelman in Conversation with Dan Nadel
James Cohan Gallery
Sat. April 6th, 2024
EVENT AT 2PM
52 Walker St, New York, NY 10013
Join us at 52 Walker on Saturday, April 6, 2024, at 2 PM for a conversation about the work and life of Si Lewen between exhibition curator Art Spiegelman and Dan Nadel, Curator-at-Large for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
SI LEWEN’S
PARADE
AN ARTIST’S ODYSSEY
EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
Art Spiegelman
Imprint: Abrams ComicArts
Trim Size: 11 1⁄8 x 8
ISBN: 9781419721618
Page Count: 148
Illustrations: Accordion fold and slipcase
Rights: World/All
The Ritchie Boys
They were young. The world’s most unlikely soldiers. As teenagers, they had escaped the Nazis. They trained in intelligence work and psychological warfare, and returned to Europe as US soldiers - with the greatest motivation to fight this war: They were Jewish. They called themselves “The Ritchie Boys”.
“Our time needs you and your work.”
— ALBERT EINSTEIN, from a letter to Si Lewen, 1951
Panels from the Millipede series
REFLECTIONS &
REPERCUSSIONS
SI LEWEN’S MEMOIRS
PRINT AND KINDLE EDITIONS COMING SOON!
The first four pages from the graphic story A Journey