Thousands of Works to Enrich Edythe Griffinger Portal

Launched in March 2017 to provide easy access to selected visual materials from LBI’s Art and Objects Collection, the Edythe Griffi nger Art Catalog features high-quality preview images and enhanced metadata that bring this rich collection to life. In 2021, staff selected approximately 1,000 representative highlights from the 8,000-item collection for their aesthetic and historical value and ensured that high-quality, full-color digital images were available. They then added enhanced metadata including biographical and historical information about the artists and subjects.

In 2021, archive and library staff selected 1,000 photographs for inclusion in the project, comprising portraits of prominent individuals and documentary images of synagogues. Among the images are works by photographers including Lotte Jacobi, Philippe Halsman, and Nicola Perscheid. Notably, many of the most prominent photographers whose work is featured are women such as Jacobi, Trude Fleischmann, Ursula Richter, and Trude Geiringer, whose portrait and journalistic work documented the arts and culture scenes in both Weimar-era Germany and the United States.

The hundreds of photographs of synagogues now included in the portal depict the interior and exterior of synagogues large and small across Germany, Austria, and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. They provide critical documentation of many houses of worship that no longer exist today.

In the coming years, staff will continue working to add the remaining 8,000 items in the Art and Objects collections as well as important photographs and other visual materials.

From LBI News 112