| Mark Podwal | |
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Artist in the studio (2007) |
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| Born | June 8, 1945 |
| Field | Watercolor, Drawing, Painting |
Mark Podwal (born June 8, 1945) is an artist, author and physician. He 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.
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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 Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York. Moreover, he designed sixteen kiln cast glass panels for the United Jewish Appeal Federation Headquarters in New York. Podwal collaborated with Academy Award winning filmmaker Allan Miller on the documentary House of Life: The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, narrated by Claire Bloom. In 2009 and 2010, the film was broadcast on PBS. Podwal's portraits of Mozart in costumes from his operas were published as a boxed set of greeting cards by the Metropolitan Opera.
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.[1] The project has since also been carried out in Los Angeles, CA and Binghamton, NY.
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.