Thursday, April 29th and Friday, April 30th, 2010
The Concordia Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies in collaboration with the McCord Museum is organizing a symposium on Montreal Jewish culture and art, as a complement to the McCord's painting exhibition, Jewish Painters of Montreal: Witnesses of Their Time, 1930-1948. This will bring together a range of specialists on subjects such as literature, social history, art and music to discuss the period in which the painters created the work on display in the museum. It will include a screening of Garry Beitel's movie Chez Schwartz, and will focus on aspects of the McCord's collection that relate to Montreal Jewish history.
- Welcome by Suzanne Sauvage, President and Chief Executive Officer, McCord Museum. Opening words by President Judith Woodsworth, Concordia University. Keynote talk by Esther Trépanier, curator of the exhibition and Executive Director of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
- Followed by wine reception and tour of the painting exhibition.
- University of Ottawa's Rebecca Margolis discussing Yiddish literary life during the painters' active years.
- A lunch time showing of the movie Chez Schwartz, with director, Garry Beitel, taking questions afterward.
- McGill's Lisa Sumner, on how Seagram used its profile and resources to undertake projects associated with Canadian national and cultural identity.
- Loren Lerner from Concordia's Art History Department will speak about the Jewish painters of Montreal as both modern and Jewish artists.