My essay on Brooklyn artist Archie Rand—whose murals for a Brooklyn synagogue are the closest thing I have experienced to a Jewish Sistine Chapel—appears in Mosaic magazine. The piece runs some 3,500 words and was trimmed from a much-larger draft, so there is plenty of information about the synagogue and what I see as some of Rand’s other major serial paintings, as well as a bit of his biography.
I will just add that Rand shared with me, and with artist and writer Richard McBee, one of the most poignant and powerful descriptions of Jewish art I have ever heard. Even many years later, it remains with me. He said that being a Jewish artist is like holding a white flag up in a foxhole to test enemy firepower.
To be honest, being a critic who covers Jewish art often feels similar.