Mark Podwal
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MARK PODWAL (born June 8, 1945) is an artist, author and physician.
Mark Podwal may be best known for his drawings on The New York Times OP-ED page. In addition, he is the author and illustrator of books for children as well as for adults. Most of these works — Podwal's own as well as those he has illustrated for others—typically focus on Jewish legend, history and tradition. Exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world, his art is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, Fogg Art Museum, the Jewish Museum in Prague, and the Library of Congress.
 Artist in the studio (2007) |
 Ghetto Wall (1996) |
 Cover of Doctored Drawings (Bellevue Literary Press) |
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[edit] Biography
Born in Brooklyn, Mark Podwal was raised in Flushing, Queens. Though he always loved to draw, Podwal never pursued formal art training and eventually his parents encouraged him to become a physician. While attending New York University School of Medicine, his passion for drawing once again crept in: the tumultuous events of the 1960’s compelled Podwal to create a series of political drawings that were published as his first book The Decline and Fall of the American Empire. These images were brought to the attention of an art director at The New York Times, and in 1972, his first drawing appeared on its OP-ED page. That drawing of the Munich massacre was later included in an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs Palais du Louvre.
Podwal is the author and illustrator of numerous books including Jerusalem Sky: Stars, Crosses and Crescents, A Sweet Year, Doctored Drawings, A Jewish Bestiary, Freud’s da Vinci, among others. King Solomon and His Magic Ring, a collaboration with Elie Wiesel, won a Silver Medal from the Society of Illustrators in 1999 and You Never Know, his collaboration with Francine Prose, won a National Jewish Book Award in 1998.
Fallen Angels, a collaboration with Harold Bloom is to be published in the fall of 2007. Author Cynthia Ozick has given Podwal the Hebrew name Baal Kav Emet, or "Master of the True Line." As she explains in her essay Ink & Inkling, "[Podwal] joins metaphysics to physics: essence to presence; ideas to real objects…The Master of the True Line is also master of hidden meanings, of symbol and metaphor." [1] In 1996, the French government named Podwal an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. Hebrew College, Newton Centre, Massachusetts, in 2003 awarded him a Doctor of Humane Letters Honoris Causa. In 2006, the Jewish Museum in Prague chose Podwal to create its Centennial print. [2]
[edit] Projects and Installations
Beyond his works on paper, Podwal’s artistry has been employed in an array of diverse projects, including the design of a series of decorative plates for the Metropolitan Museum Of Art: Passover Plate, Zodiac Platter (Met Bestseller), and Life Cycle (Met Bestseller). His work has been animated for public television in A Passover Seder with Elie Wiesel (Time Warner), engraved on a Congressional Gold Medal presented by President Reagan to Elie Wiesel, and woven into an Aubusson tapestry that adorns the ark in the main sanctuary of Temple Emanu-El in New York. Moreover, he designed sixteen kiln cast glass windows for the United Jewish Appeal Federation Headquarters in New York.
In conjunction with The Anti-Defamation League, Podwal began The Jerusalem Sky Project, a program that fosters tolerance and awareness by bringing together young children from the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian communities. Participating religious schools study Podwal's Jerusalem Sky in their classrooms, and then encourage their students to illustrate their own depictions of Jerusalem. Amidst the learning, the children of each school write to or meet with their counterparts at a school of another faith and begin to learn about each other's religion and culture. After a few weeks, the program culminates with an exhibition of all of the drawings from each of the schools. At the opening of the exhibition, the children meet to enjoy each other's art and company. In a 2005 article called "Three Faiths, One Lesson", The New York Times covered the completion of the program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in Brooklyn, NY. The project has since also been carried out in Los Angeles, CA and Binghamton, NY.
[edit] Affiliations
Podwal is represented by Forum Gallery, New York and has exhibited there since 1977. His papers are archived in the Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ. He continues to pursue a parallel career as a physician and currently serves on the faculty of New York University School of Medicine as Clinical Associate Professor of Dermatology.
[edit] References
- ^ Ozick, Cynthia. Ink and Inkling: Mark Podwal Master of the True Line. South Hadley: Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. 1990.
- ^ http://www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/avice4.htm
