History Of Matzah Panel Discussion

NEW HAVEN — Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) and Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) will present the second program in the 2008 Andrew Carnduff Ritchie Lecture Series, a panel discussion concerning “History of Matzah: The Story of the Jews,” on Thursday, April 24. The lecture will begin at 5:30 pm in the Robert L. McNeil, Jr, Lecture Hall at Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street.

Russell Ferguson, chair, department of art, University of California, Los Angels, and adjunct curator, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and James Ponet, Jewish chaplain and director of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, will engage in discussion of Larry Rivers’s monumental triptych “History of Matzah: The Story of the Jews.” This mural-style narrative history of the Jewish people from the biblical period to the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, when millions emigrated to America, encompasses three panels that together measure more than 450 square feet.

“History of Matzah” was generously given to YUAG in 2004 by Jeffrey H. Loris, BA 1962, in memory of Harriet Loria Popowitz.

The Ritchie Lecture Series is jointly sponsored by YCBA and YUAG and was established to honor the memory of Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, director of the Yale University Art Gallery from 1957 to 1971. The Ritchie Lectures are offered annually and bring to the university distinguished members of the international visual arts community.

The lecture is free and open to the public, honoring Mr Ritchie’s belief that the art museum serves as a gathering place for all members of the community.

For additional information or direction, call Yale University Art Gallery at 203-432-2800 or visit yale.edu/ycba.