Movement, Style, School or Type of Art:
Modernist Expressionism
Date and Place of Birth:
June 8, 1945, Brooklyn, New York
Life:
Mark Podwal is a Renaissance Man for our time: an internationally-known New York artist, an Upper East side dermatologist and a clinical associate professor with NYU's Langone Medical Center. He also produced the acclaimed documentary House of Life: The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, narrated by actress Claire Bloom.
Podwal's career as an artist began in the 1960s. As a medical student at New York University, Podwal drew politically-charged images which he eventually published in his first book The Decline and Fall of the American Empire (Darien House, 1971). Peter Fonda wrote the introduction.This book attracted the attention of The New York Times, where he subsequently contributed drawings to the Op-Ed page on numerous occasions.
Simultaneously, his medical practice and reputation grew, landing him on the Best Doctors lists in New York for the last ten years. His specialty is skin cancer.
In the art world, Mark Podwal's brightly-hued expressionist paintings and prints are often on view in museum exhibitions and occasionally at Forum Gallery in New York. Most of his subject matter describes Jewish traditions and legends. In his 2008 exhibition, Jewish Magic, Podwal explored the mysticism of Kabbalah and angels.
Parents might recognize Podwal's style from their children's picture books. His most recent publications are Jerusalem Sky: Stars, Crosses and Crescents (Doubleday, 2005) and Built by Angels: The Story of the Old-New Synagogue [in Prague] (Random House, 2009), which he wrote and illustrated. He has also illustrated books by Harold Bloom, Elie Wiesel, Francine Prose and Francine Klagsbrun.
Above all, Podwal's Jerusalem Sky project deserves much praise and attention. Launched under the sponsorship of the Anti-Defamation League in 2005, this exhibition features a workshop that encourages children to express their own interpretation of interfaith understanding by making their own art. In December 2005, fourth and fifth graders from Brooklyn Amity, Hannah Senesh Community Day and Holy Name of Jesus (one Muslim, one Jewish and one Roman Catholic) met at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Opera House, not far from Podwal's childhood home.
In 1996, the French government made Podwal an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In April 2010, Chapman University honored Elie Wiesel at a Holocaust Remembrance dinner and presented him with a gift: The Books of Elie Wiesel by Mark Podwal (2010) - a moving gesture for both men.
Podwal's personal papers can be found in the Princeton University archives.
Read the 2008 review "The Magical Art of Mark Podwal."
Artist's Books:
- Built by Angels: The Story of the Old-New Synagogue.
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. - Doctored Drawings.
New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2007. - Jerusalem Sky.
New York: Random House, 2005. - A Sweet Year.
New York: Random House, 2003. - The Menorah Story.
New York: Greenwillow Books, 1998. - Golem: A Giant Made of Mud.
New York: Greenwillow Books, 1995. - The Book of Tens.
New York: Greenwillow Books, 1994. - A Jewish Bestiary.
Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1985. - Leonardo di Freud.
Milan: Sperling and Kupfer Editori, 1982. - A Book of Hebrew Letters.
Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1978. - The Decline and Fall of the American Empire.
Introduction by Peter Fonda. New York: Darien House, 1971.
Illustrated Books (selected list):
- Bloom, Harold. Fallen Angels.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. - Prose, Francine. The Demon's Mistake: A Story from Chelm.
New York: Greenwillow Books, 2000. - Wiesel, Elie. King Solomon and His Magic Ring. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1999.
- Wiesel, Elie. Le Golem: Legende d'une legende.< br> Paris: Bibliophane / Editions du Rocher, 1998.
- Prose, Francine. The Angel's Mistake: Stories of Chelm.
New York: Greenwillow Books, 1997. - Prose, Francine. Dybbuk: A Marriage Made in Heaven.
New York: Greenwillow Books, 1996. - Klagsbrun, Francine. Jewish Days.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996. - Wiesel, Elie. A Passover Haggadah.
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993. - Wiesel, Elie. Six Days of Destruction.
Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1988. - The Elie Wiesel Collection.
Paris: The Bibliophile Library, 1985-1988. (Fourteen volumes) - Let My People Go: A Haggadah.
Introduction by Theodore Bikel. Foreword by Abba Eban.
New York: MacMillan, 1972.
Collections:
- Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Haifa Museum of Modern Art, Haifa, Israel
- Hebrew College, Newton Centre, Massachusetts
- Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
- Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
- Jewish Museum, New York
- Jewish Museum, Prague, Czech Republic
- Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem, Israel.
- Jewish Theological Seminary Library, New York
- Judaica Museum of the Hebrew Home for the Aged, Riverdale, New York
- Judiska Musee i Stockholm, Sweden
- Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
- Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont
- Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts
- Museum of the City of New York, New York
- National Gallery in Prague, Czech Republic
- National Museum of American Jewish History, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- New York Historical Society, New York
- New York Public Library, New York
- New York University, New York
- Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
- Skirball Museum, Los Angeles, California
- Temple Emanu-El, New York
- Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
- World Trade Center Memorial Museum, New York
- Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
- Yeshiva University Museum, New York
- Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, New Brunswick, New Jersey