Todros Geller
Encyclopedia
Todros Geller was a Ukrainian American artist and teacher best known as a master printmaker and a leading artist among Chicago’s art community.
, Ukraine
in 1889. He studied art in Odessa
and continued his studies after moving to Montreal
in 1906 where he immigrated to Canada
. He married and moved to Chicago
in 1918, where he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago until 1923.
, ghetto life, and the intersection of Jewish tradition with modern day Chicago. He regarded art as a tool for social reform and he spent a large part of his career teaching art. His work was commissioned for stained glass windows, bookplates, community centers and Yiddish and English books. He was regarded as a leader in the field of synagogue and religious art. He designed stained glass windows for synagogues in Omaha
, Fort Worth, Dayton
, Stamford
, and Chicago Heights. Over the course of his career he illustrated more than 40 books.
. Many prominent Chicago artists studied drawing and painting under Geller. Geller was a source of inspiration to Aaron Bohrod
and Mitchell Siporin
, among others.
for its commitment to the Yiddish language and to the Jewish settlement in Birobidzhan
. Shteyn's Yiddish press, the L. M. Shteyn Farlag, published at least eight monographs illustrated by Geller and four art albums dedicated to his work.
's), included Geller as one of the "many well known artists" to have their works listed in an art exhibit catalogue.
Geller was one of the founding members of "Around the Palette" in Chicago in 1926, a club where artists shared their personal views of art and its role in society. The club became the "American Jewish Art Club", in 1940 and subsequently the "American Jewish Artists Club" in the early 1990s. Other founding members included Emil Armin, David Bekker, Aaron Bohrod
, Fritz Brod, Samuel Greenburg, William S. Schwartz, Maurice Yochim and Louise Dunn Yochim.
In 1929 Geller visited Palestine, where he was inspired to paint Biblical themes such as his painting Jerusalem the Old which was included in the catalogue of the Art Institute of Chicago's thirty-third annual exhibition. He also created a woodcut series entitled Seven Palestinian motifs cut on wood in 1930.
In 1931, Geller provided illustrations for Rose G Lurie's book, The Great March: Post Biblical Jewish Stories, a selection of Jewish stories for children covering the period from the destruction of the First Temple to the expulsion from Spain
. The book was published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and was intended to cultivate "a love for Jewish heroes, for the Jewish people, and for Jewish idealism." John Drury, in his 1931 review of the Cafe Royale, "an intellectual and artistic rendezvous of the west side Jewish quarter", for his book Dining in Chicago, included "Todros Geller, the wood-block artist" as one of the "local Jewish celebrities in the arts and allied
interests" who dined there.
In 1932, Geller participated in the Grant Park
Art Fair organized by Adeline Loebdell Atwater, Chicago's first open-air art fair.
According to Sarah Abrevaya Stein, professor of history and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA, inexpensive reproductions of Geller's art were popular with Chicago's Jewish Left in the 1930s, particularly a picture of a tradionally dressed Jewish man standing below the tracks of one of Chicago's elevated trains
.
Geller regarded art as a tool for social reform. In 1936, he signed the call for the first American Artists' Congress
"Against War and Fascism". In the summer of 1936, the Chicago Society of Artists published their first annual block-print calendar called The Artist Calendar – 1937 that featured woodcuts by 30 Chicago artists, including Geller. The calendar project, was intended to raise funds for the society activities and expose Chicago artists to a wider audience.
He was the most prominent of the 14 graphic artists who participated in A Gift to Biro-Bidjan in 1937, an album of 14 woodcuts produced as a fund-raising project for the Chicago ICOR (whose acronym comes from the Yiddish name for the Association for Jewish Colonization in the Soviet Union) to support the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
. Geller's contribution to the portfolio was a wood cut based on Raisins and Almonds
, the Yiddish lullaby written by Abraham Goldfaden
, in 1880, for his operetta Shulamis. The woodcut shows several scenes as a boy grows up and travels from Eastern Europe to Chicago, from the boy's mother and a goat surrounding his cradle, the boy studying, the grown man walking with a sack on his back passing an open market, working as a tailor to earn money to immigrate to the New World followed by a scene of an elevated train and the smokestacks of Chicago with unemployed workers demonstrating with banners and flags. The last scene on the theme of new hope, shows the man standing looking up and grasping a newly planted tree. The other artists who contributed woodcuts were Alex Topchevsky, William Jacobs, Aaron Bohrod, David Bekker, Louis Weiner, Mitchell Siporin, Edward Millman, Fritzi Brod, Bernece Berkman, Moris Topchevsky, Abraham Weiner, Raymond Katz, and Ceil Rosenberg.
In 1937, Shteyn published a volume of about sixty woodcuts by Geller called From Land to Land, produced as part of the Federal Art Project
(FAP), the visual arts arm of the Great Depression
-era New Deal
Works Progress Administration
(WPA) Federal One
program in the United States
. The cover featured a goat on the shore of Lake Michigan
with Chicago’s skyline in the background. As an important staple of Jewish life in Eastern Europe that were believed to have with mystical qualities, goats were a dominant symbol in Geller’s artistic vocabulary. The woodcuts, four of which were in color, illustrated Jewish life, in addition to Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Midwestern American themes.
In May, 1938, the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma
opened to the public. It was the first tribally owned museum in the United States, and was built with support from a WPA-sponsored program for the preseravtion of Native American
culture. As part of Osage
Tribal Councilman John Joseph Mathews' efforts to conserve Osage culture, Mathews obtained a second grant from the Federal Art Project to finance an art project commissioned for the museum’s opening that included oil portraits of Osage elders posing in various costumes. Geller, who had spent time in the Southwest studying and painting Native American Indians, supervised the art project and painted around twelve of the portraits. Geller's paintings are displayed at the museum.
Geller provided illustrations for some of the Nebraska Folklore pamphlets, written and compiled by Nebraska's Writers' Project between 1937 and 1940. The pamphlets were produced as part of the "Folklore Project", a WPA Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) supported effort to document the life histories of people from different backgrounds and geographic regions.
The WPA supported South Side Community Art Center
opened in 1940 providing free art lessons for the community. Geller was a member of the interracial faculty of art instructors that included local black artists such as Charles Davis, Charles White, Bernard Goss, William Carter and local white artists such as Morris Topchevsky, Si Gordon and Max Kahn.
Geller became the first president of the American Jewish Arts Club following its formation in Chicago in 1940.
In 1942, Geller provided woodcut-illustrations for Jewish dancing master Nathan Vizonsky's book Ten Jewish Folk Dances: A Manual for Teachers and Leaders published by the American-Hebrew Theatrical League in Chicago. The book, possibly the first English-language book to document the dances characteristic of the Jews of Eastern Europe, contains explanations of the purpose of various dances including folkloric information, step-by-step dance descriptions, detailed notes on the costumes to be used and music scores arranged by Max Janowski
.
, Increase Robinson, and Carl Zigrosser. The papers cover his efforts to establish a Jewish museum in Chicago in 1928, involvement with the WPA Federal Art Project, participation in Artists Equity and the American Federation of Arts
, his work teaching art to the Jewish community and his efforts to improve the working conditions and visibility of Jewish artists.
The Institute's Spertus Museum of Judaica also holds a number of Geller's oil paintings including Landscape with Figure (1924), Portrait of a Man (1929), Crossroads (ca. 1930), Vase of Flowers (1931), Mexican Village (1935), Portrait of an Artist, Portrait of Ben Shalom, Jerusalem Courtyard, Mitzi, Church Landscape, Portrait of a Woman and two paintings, Tenant Scene (undated) and Park Scene (1946), painted on the same board support in a double-sided format.
In March 2011, Susan Weininger, Professor Emerita of Art History at Roosevelt University
gave a lecture titled "The Dean of Chicago Jewish Artists: Todros Geller & the Chicago Context" at North Shore Synagogue Beth El, Highland Park, Illinois
, in conjunction with an exhibit of Geller's woodcut prints.
Early life and education
Geller was born in VinnytsiaVinnytsia
Vinnytsia is a city located on the banks of the Southern Bug, in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Vinnytsia Oblast.-Names:...
, Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
in 1889. He studied art in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
and continued his studies after moving to Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
in 1906 where he immigrated to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. He married and moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in 1918, where he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago until 1923.
Career
Geller produced paintings, woodcuts, woodcarvings, and etchings. His work focused on Jewish tradition, often including moralistic themes and social commentary, shtetlShtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...
, ghetto life, and the intersection of Jewish tradition with modern day Chicago. He regarded art as a tool for social reform and he spent a large part of his career teaching art. His work was commissioned for stained glass windows, bookplates, community centers and Yiddish and English books. He was regarded as a leader in the field of synagogue and religious art. He designed stained glass windows for synagogues in Omaha
Omaha
Omaha may refer to:*Omaha , a Native American tribe that currently resides in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Nebraska-Places:United States* Omaha, Nebraska* Omaha, Arkansas* Omaha, Georgia* Omaha, Illinois* Omaha, Texas...
, Fort Worth, Dayton
Dayton
Dayton is a city in Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, United States.Dayton may also refer to:-United States:*Dayton, Alabama*Dayton, California, in Butte County*Dayton, Lassen County, California*Dayton, Idaho*Dayton, Indiana...
, Stamford
Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...
, and Chicago Heights. Over the course of his career he illustrated more than 40 books.
Teaching art
In addition to conducting classes in his studio, Geller was head of art at the Jewish People’s Institute (JPI), supervisor of art for the Board of Jewish Education and director of art for the College of Jewish Studies (which became the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies) and taught at Hull HouseHull House
Hull House is a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of , Hull House opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull...
. Many prominent Chicago artists studied drawing and painting under Geller. Geller was a source of inspiration to Aaron Bohrod
Aaron Bohrod
Aaron Bohrod was an American artist best known for his trompe-l'oeil still-life paintings.Bohrad was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1907, the son of an emigree Russian grocer. Bohrod studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League of New York between 1926 and 1930...
and Mitchell Siporin
Mitchell Siporin
-Biography:Mitchell Siporin was born in New York City and grew up in Chicago. Through the Works Progress Administration, he worked as a painter. Together with Edward Milman, he painted the frescoes in the Central Post Office in St Louis. From 1946 to 1949, he served in the army in North Africa and...
, among others.
The L. M. Shteyn Farlag
In 1926, Geller formed what would become a lengthy working relationship with Chicago publisher and cultural activist L. M. Shteyn (a pseudonym for Yitshak Leyb Fradkin, anglicized as L.M. Stein in his English language correspondence). Shteyn and Geller shared a similar ideology, were both considered radical progressives, were part of the Chicago Jewish Left who worked to promote the Yiddish language and they both supported the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
for its commitment to the Yiddish language and to the Jewish settlement in Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Trans-Siberian railway, close to the border with the People's Republic of China....
. Shteyn's Yiddish press, the L. M. Shteyn Farlag, published at least eight monographs illustrated by Geller and four art albums dedicated to his work.
Art and activism
In 1923, the Chicago Hebrew Institute's Observer (a forerunner of todays Jewish Community CenterJewish Community Center
A Jewish Community Center or Jewish Community Centre is a general recreational, social and fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities...
's), included Geller as one of the "many well known artists" to have their works listed in an art exhibit catalogue.
Geller was one of the founding members of "Around the Palette" in Chicago in 1926, a club where artists shared their personal views of art and its role in society. The club became the "American Jewish Art Club", in 1940 and subsequently the "American Jewish Artists Club" in the early 1990s. Other founding members included Emil Armin, David Bekker, Aaron Bohrod
Aaron Bohrod
Aaron Bohrod was an American artist best known for his trompe-l'oeil still-life paintings.Bohrad was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1907, the son of an emigree Russian grocer. Bohrod studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League of New York between 1926 and 1930...
, Fritz Brod, Samuel Greenburg, William S. Schwartz, Maurice Yochim and Louise Dunn Yochim.
In 1929 Geller visited Palestine, where he was inspired to paint Biblical themes such as his painting Jerusalem the Old which was included in the catalogue of the Art Institute of Chicago's thirty-third annual exhibition. He also created a woodcut series entitled Seven Palestinian motifs cut on wood in 1930.
In 1931, Geller provided illustrations for Rose G Lurie's book, The Great March: Post Biblical Jewish Stories, a selection of Jewish stories for children covering the period from the destruction of the First Temple to the expulsion from Spain
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
. The book was published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and was intended to cultivate "a love for Jewish heroes, for the Jewish people, and for Jewish idealism." John Drury, in his 1931 review of the Cafe Royale, "an intellectual and artistic rendezvous of the west side Jewish quarter", for his book Dining in Chicago, included "Todros Geller, the wood-block artist" as one of the "local Jewish celebrities in the arts and allied
interests" who dined there.
In 1932, Geller participated in the Grant Park
Grant Park (Chicago)
Grant Park, with between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, offers many different attractions in its large open space. The park is generally flat. It is also crossed by large boulevards and even a bed of sunken railroad tracks...
Art Fair organized by Adeline Loebdell Atwater, Chicago's first open-air art fair.
According to Sarah Abrevaya Stein, professor of history and Maurice Amado Chair in Sephardic Studies at UCLA, inexpensive reproductions of Geller's art were popular with Chicago's Jewish Left in the 1930s, particularly a picture of a tradionally dressed Jewish man standing below the tracks of one of Chicago's elevated trains
Chicago 'L'
The L is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs. It is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority...
.
Geller regarded art as a tool for social reform. In 1936, he signed the call for the first American Artists' Congress
American Artists' Congress
The American Artists’ Congress was an organization founded in February 1936 as part of the popular front of the Communist Party USA as a vehicle for uniting graphic artists in projects helping to combat the spread of fascism...
"Against War and Fascism". In the summer of 1936, the Chicago Society of Artists published their first annual block-print calendar called The Artist Calendar – 1937 that featured woodcuts by 30 Chicago artists, including Geller. The calendar project, was intended to raise funds for the society activities and expose Chicago artists to a wider audience.
He was the most prominent of the 14 graphic artists who participated in A Gift to Biro-Bidjan in 1937, an album of 14 woodcuts produced as a fund-raising project for the Chicago ICOR (whose acronym comes from the Yiddish name for the Association for Jewish Colonization in the Soviet Union) to support the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Jewish Autonomous Oblast
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is a federal subject of Russia situated in the Russian Far East, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast of Russia and Heilongjiang province of China. Its administrative center is the town of Birobidzhan....
. Geller's contribution to the portfolio was a wood cut based on Raisins and Almonds
Raisins and Almonds
"Raisins and Almonds" is a Jewish lullaby by Abraham Goldfaden, so well known that it has assumed the status of a folk song. It has been recorded as both a vocal and instrumental by many artists over the years, including Itzhak Perlman and Benita Valente. It is a common lullaby among European Jews...
, the Yiddish lullaby written by Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden ; was an Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays.Goldfaden is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre.In 1876 he founded in...
, in 1880, for his operetta Shulamis. The woodcut shows several scenes as a boy grows up and travels from Eastern Europe to Chicago, from the boy's mother and a goat surrounding his cradle, the boy studying, the grown man walking with a sack on his back passing an open market, working as a tailor to earn money to immigrate to the New World followed by a scene of an elevated train and the smokestacks of Chicago with unemployed workers demonstrating with banners and flags. The last scene on the theme of new hope, shows the man standing looking up and grasping a newly planted tree. The other artists who contributed woodcuts were Alex Topchevsky, William Jacobs, Aaron Bohrod, David Bekker, Louis Weiner, Mitchell Siporin, Edward Millman, Fritzi Brod, Bernece Berkman, Moris Topchevsky, Abraham Weiner, Raymond Katz, and Ceil Rosenberg.
In 1937, Shteyn published a volume of about sixty woodcuts by Geller called From Land to Land, produced as part of the Federal Art Project
Federal Art Project
The Federal Art Project was the visual arts arm of the Great Depression-era New Deal Works Progress Administration Federal One program in the United States. It operated from August 29, 1935, until June 30, 1943. Reputed to have created more than 200,000 separate works, FAP artists created...
(FAP), the visual arts arm of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
-era New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
(WPA) Federal One
Federal One
Federal Project Number One was the collective name for a group of projects under the Work Projects Administration, a New Deal program in the United States. The five elements of the program were:*Mathematical Tables Project*Harry Hopkins-External links:...
program in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The cover featured a goat on the shore of Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
with Chicago’s skyline in the background. As an important staple of Jewish life in Eastern Europe that were believed to have with mystical qualities, goats were a dominant symbol in Geller’s artistic vocabulary. The woodcuts, four of which were in color, illustrated Jewish life, in addition to Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Midwestern American themes.
In May, 1938, the Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
Pawhuska is a city in and the county seat of Osage County, Oklahoma, United States, and the capital of the Osage Nation. The population was 3,589 at the 2010 census, a decline of 1.2 percent from 3,629 at the 2000 census. The ZIP Code for the city is 74056...
opened to the public. It was the first tribally owned museum in the United States, and was built with support from a WPA-sponsored program for the preseravtion of Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
culture. As part of Osage
Osage Nation
The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
Tribal Councilman John Joseph Mathews' efforts to conserve Osage culture, Mathews obtained a second grant from the Federal Art Project to finance an art project commissioned for the museum’s opening that included oil portraits of Osage elders posing in various costumes. Geller, who had spent time in the Southwest studying and painting Native American Indians, supervised the art project and painted around twelve of the portraits. Geller's paintings are displayed at the museum.
Geller provided illustrations for some of the Nebraska Folklore pamphlets, written and compiled by Nebraska's Writers' Project between 1937 and 1940. The pamphlets were produced as part of the "Folklore Project", a WPA Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) supported effort to document the life histories of people from different backgrounds and geographic regions.
The WPA supported South Side Community Art Center
South Side Community Art Center
The South Side Community Art Center is a community art center in Chicago that opened in 1940 with support from the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project in Illinois. It was the first black art museum in the United States and has been an important center for the development Chicago's...
opened in 1940 providing free art lessons for the community. Geller was a member of the interracial faculty of art instructors that included local black artists such as Charles Davis, Charles White, Bernard Goss, William Carter and local white artists such as Morris Topchevsky, Si Gordon and Max Kahn.
Geller became the first president of the American Jewish Arts Club following its formation in Chicago in 1940.
In 1942, Geller provided woodcut-illustrations for Jewish dancing master Nathan Vizonsky's book Ten Jewish Folk Dances: A Manual for Teachers and Leaders published by the American-Hebrew Theatrical League in Chicago. The book, possibly the first English-language book to document the dances characteristic of the Jews of Eastern Europe, contains explanations of the purpose of various dances including folkloric information, step-by-step dance descriptions, detailed notes on the costumes to be used and music scores arranged by Max Janowski
Max Janowski
Max Janowski , was a composer of Jewish liturgical music, a conductor, choir director, and voice teacher. Born in Berlin, in the early 1930s he became head of the piano department at the Musashino Academy of Music, Tokyo, Japan. He emigrated to the United States in 1937 and served in the U.S...
.
Death and legacy
Geller died on 23 February 1949, aged 59. He was survived by his wife Olga Geller, his daughter Esther Silverman and his sister. The Jewish Education Building in Chicago held a memorial exhibit for him shortly after his death.Spertus Institute archive
The Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago have a collection of papers documenting Geller's career. The archive includes photographs, sketchbooks, original artwork, commissions for stained glass windows, various manuscript material including typescripts of articles, papers relating to the American Artists' Congress, 1937–1938, and correspondence with art organizations and artists such as Raymond Katz, Beatrice Levy, Archibald MotleyArchibald Motley
Archibald John Motley, Junior was an African-American painter. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1918...
, Increase Robinson, and Carl Zigrosser. The papers cover his efforts to establish a Jewish museum in Chicago in 1928, involvement with the WPA Federal Art Project, participation in Artists Equity and the American Federation of Arts
American Federation of Arts
The American Federation of Arts is an organization in the United States of museums and other entities involved in the arts. It was established in 1909 at a convention held in Washington, D. C. from May 11–13 of that year called by the National Academy of Art. The concept for the organization was...
, his work teaching art to the Jewish community and his efforts to improve the working conditions and visibility of Jewish artists.
The Institute's Spertus Museum of Judaica also holds a number of Geller's oil paintings including Landscape with Figure (1924), Portrait of a Man (1929), Crossroads (ca. 1930), Vase of Flowers (1931), Mexican Village (1935), Portrait of an Artist, Portrait of Ben Shalom, Jerusalem Courtyard, Mitzi, Church Landscape, Portrait of a Woman and two paintings, Tenant Scene (undated) and Park Scene (1946), painted on the same board support in a double-sided format.
In March 2011, Susan Weininger, Professor Emerita of Art History at Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University
Roosevelt University is a coeducational, private university with campuses in Chicago, Illinois and Schaumburg, Illinois. Founded in 1945, the university is named in honor of both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The university's curriculum is based on...
gave a lecture titled "The Dean of Chicago Jewish Artists: Todros Geller & the Chicago Context" at North Shore Synagogue Beth El, Highland Park, Illinois
Highland Park, Illinois
Highland Park is a suburban municipality in Lake County, Illinois, United States, about north of downtown Chicago. As of 2009, the population is 33,492. Highland Park is one of several municipalities located on the North Shore of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.-Overview:Highland Park was founded...
, in conjunction with an exhibit of Geller's woodcut prints.
Books illustrated by Geller
External links
- Wood block prints produced for the WPA Federal Art Project - Gibbes Museum of ArtGibbes Museum of ArtThe Gibbes Museum of Art is an art museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Established as the Carolina Art Association in 1858, the museum moved into a new Beaux Arts building at 135 Meeting Street in 1905...
- Wood block prints produced for the WPA Federal Art Project - Weisman Art MuseumWeisman Art MuseumThe Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum is an art museum located on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. A teaching museum for the university since 1934, the museum is named for Frederick R. Weisman, and was designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry...