A significant chapter in Carl Heidenreich's life-and one that had lasting effects on his artistic career-was his participation in the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), an anti-Salinist Leftist faction supporting the Republican cause in Spain in the 1930s.

Ken Loach's 1995 film, Land and Freedom, is a compelling dramatization of the Spanish Civil War as experienced by a young working-class man from Liverpool who, inspired by newsreels about the situation in Spain, journeys to Barcelona to enlist on the side of the Republic. Ignacio Navarrete, associate professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, will introduce the film.

Curator's Talk
Alla Efimova
Thursday, September 23, 12:15 pm
Gallery A

In the late 1940s, both Carl Heidenreich and Hans Hofmann turned to abstract painting. If for Hofmann abstraction represented an assertion of inner vision and the liberation of the individual, for Heidenreich it was a result of a complex negotiation with the New World. Alla Efimova, chief curator at the Judah L. Magnes Museum and guest curator of the exhibition, examines the differing artistic strategies of these two émigré painters.

Panel Discussion
Martin Jay, Anne Wagner, Alla Efimova
Carl Heidenreich and German Émigré Culture from the Weimar Republic to Postwar New York
Thursday, September 23, 3-5 pm
Museum Theater

Bringing together a multidisciplinary group of scholars, this program will provide a context for the work of Carl Heidenreich.

Speaking about "the expressionist emancipation of color," Martin Jay, professor of history at UC Berkeley, will take up the interrelationship of art and politics in the Weimar Republic. UC Berkeley art history professor Anne Wagner will consider the significance of Heidenreich's work in the larger context of postwar abstract painting, and guest curator Alla Efimova will address the cultural milieu of New York's émigré-artist community.

Public programs are included with museum admission.