Exploring the overlooked role of Jewish patrons in Van Gogh’s art world.
ONLINE
Mondays, 12:00-1:30pm (ET), October 27, 2025 - December 8, 2025
“This rapprochement between modern art and nouveau-riche Jews, this progress in the art of design, capable of transforming ghettos into affluent quarters, warrants the loveliest of hopes.”
— Karl Kraus, Die Fackel, November 1900 (English translation quoted in Nathan Timpano, Modernism/modernity, 2024).
Course Description :
In the vibrant cultural world of late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe, Jewish collectors, dealers, and patrons played a pivotal—yet often overlooked—role in shaping the art scene. From Paris, where figures like Thadée Natanson championed Toulouse-Lautrec, to Berlin, where affluent Jewish patrons embraced avant-garde works by artists such as Van Gogh, and in Vienna, where Jewish supporters of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele sought to cement their place in high society through the arts, Jewish involvement in the art world was both a celebration of culture and a strategic pathway to social integration.
This six-week course explores the remarkable influence of these Jewish patrons, the cultural and social dynamics of the time, and the lasting artistic legacy they helped create—before it was irrevocably altered by the tragedies of the 20th century.
Mondays, 12:00-1:30pm (ET)
Dates: Oct. 27; Nov. 3, 10, 17; Dec. 1 ,8
Dr. Batia Cohen earned her Ph.D. in Mesoamerican Studies from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and a Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design from the Universidad Metropolitana in Mexico City. She was an adjunct professor at Florida International University and she has taught in Florida for the past 15 years. Batia has published numerous articles in specialized Art and History magazines. She is currently a collaborator of a cultural magazine in Spanish online; LetraUrbana.com. She is the author of the historical novel Una Amapola Entre Cactus. Batia is a proud Melton graduate and serves on the Adult Learning Advisory Board.
