This light-hearted exhibition shows objects and papers relating to the partnership and careers of Manchester-born dramatist Jack Rosenthal and award-winning actress Maureen Lipman. Jack Rosenthal was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, where he attended Manchester Jews’ School. He went on to write 129 episodes of Coronation Street and a series of critically acclaimed plays including The Evacuees, The Bar Mitzvah Boy and Spend, Spend, Spend. Jack met Maureen Lipman while working at Granada TV in Manchester and they married in 1974.
Born in Hull, Maureen Lipman has become one of the UK’s most well-loved actresses. Highlights include playing Joyce Grenfell on stage in Re:Joyce, portraying Beatrice Bellman, a Jewish grandmother in a series of TV adverts for British Telecom and playing alongside Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma! at the National Theatre.
Visitors can explore programmes, posters, scripts, photographs and flyers relating to their careers in radio, film, TV and theatre. Exhibition runs until Sunday 9 June.
Jack Rosenthal's classic comedy play, Bar Mitzvah Boy, will be performed at MJM in the first week of June. More details here.
An exhibition showcasing work by some of the most famous Jewish artists in history will be opening at Manchester Jewish Museum in June. The exhibition, Chagall, Soutine & the School of Paris will include original work by artists including Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine. On loan from the Ben Uri Gallery, the exhibition opens in the same month as Tate Liverpool’s Chagall: Modern Master exhibition.
The Museum’s exhibition will include over 20 works of art by 14 artists, including Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, Lazar Berson and Sonia Delaunay. These artists formed part of the loose association of émigré artists known collectively as ‘The School of Paris’. ‘The School of Paris’ included Jewish artists who had fled poverty and persecution in Russia to settle and work in Paris. Here they had the freedom to pursue their artistic careers mostly (though not exclusively) in the first two decades of the 20thCentury.
The exhibition will include one of the most important pieces of work by Marc Chagall, ‘Apocalypse en Lilas, Capriccio’ (1945-7). Chagall painted this crucifixion scene in America in direct response to the horrors of the concentration camps that were being broadcast in the American press. It is thought Chagall was so horrified by what he heard and saw that he came out of mourning for his late wife Bella (who had died suddenly in 1944) and painted this apocalyptic scene. ‘Apocalypse en Lilas, Capriccio’ will be on show at the Museum until the end of August.
Another exhibition highlight is Chaim Soutine’s, ‘La Soubrette’ (c.1933). A perfect example of 1930s figure painting, ‘La Soubrette’ was first sold at auction in Paris in October 1937 with the title “Jeune servant”. The Ben Uri Gallery acquired La Soubrette through Sotheby’s Tax and Heritage Department last year, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, The Art Fund and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and much philanthropic support from private collectors. This will be the first time ‘La Soubrette' has been exhibited outside London.
MJM will be staging a range of exhibition related events throughout the Summer. Find out more here.
Exhibition runs from 20 June to 24 November 2013.
