New Exhibitions
Adam Grant: An Amazing Journey In Art
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Opening Reception April 15th 1-4pm.
Grant rose to fame in the Midwest during the 1970s as Toledo’s most important figurative painter. His amazing journey in art begins however as a youth during the war-torn era of World War II in his native Poland. Grant was captured and interned at Aushwitz by the Nazis in late 1942. He was just 17 years old. His father had been killed the same year and he was never to see the rest of his family again afterwards.
While not Jewish, Grant was part of the Polish intelligentsia and suspect under Nazi law. His artistic skills as a young man were the only thing that kept him alive. He remembered years before that his paternal Grandmother told him, “Art will never earn the price of your bread”. The artist reflected in a 1973 interview that, “I did pencil portraits of the guards, greetings for their girlfriends with rosebuds and butterflies as decorations, and a crayon portrait of somebody’s sweetheart with the alps in the background.” When an extra ration of bread came his way, he thought, “Art paid for the bread that sustained my life.”
Grant was later transferred to Mauthausen which was a notorious death camp for workers in a granite quarry. By May 1945 he was liberated by the U.S. Army but was so weak he required intravenous glucose treatments before he could take food by mouth. Grant would remain in a displaced persons camp in Regensburg, Germany for five years before he set his sights on coming to America. Detroit would be his new home by 1950.
In 1951, having been in Detroit for only a year, Grant responded to an ad placed by the Palmer Paint Company for an artist/designer. He was subsequently hired and became the first Designer of “Paint-by-Number” sets— an amazing story in itself!
The exhibition of 40 works will showcase the hope and renewal of Adam Grant’s life. Paintings and drawings from several series will chart his “amazing journey”.
Challenge Grant to sponsor "Adam Grant" exhibit
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The MMAA has a major 'one for two' challenge grant for sponsorship of this exhibition from R. Bruce Pickens and Peggy Weed. For every two dollars the museum can raise, it will be matched by one dollar from the two sponsors. This is a tremendous opportunity to support the museum and a worthy exhibition. Donate Today!
The Toledo Free Press article: Surviving the Holocaust through Art.
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