Dr. Monika Czekanowska-Gutman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Art and Culture within the OPUS grant granted by the National Science Centre, where she is the Principal Investigator of an international collaboration project (with researches from the USA and Israel) “Akedah as an actual sacrifice in modern Jewish culture in 20th century”. She holds BA and MA in art history from the Cardinal Wyszynski University in Warsaw (2001), with specialization in nineteenth century Jewish art, MA in Jewish-Christian relations from the Woolf Institute in Cambridge (2005), and BA and MA in Hebrew studies from the University of Warsaw (2007). Her PhD thesis granted in 2013 by the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, analyzes the visual reception of Judith, Esther and Shulamite in modern Polish-Jewish art. She has received scholarships from DAAD (2000), British Council (2000-2001), Memorial Foundation (2010-2011), Rothschild Foundation (2008-2009, 2011-2012), as well as from National Science Centre of Poland (2014-2019) and Ministry of Education (2009-2010). She was a visiting PhD student at the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (under the co-supervisor Ziva Amishai-Maisels) and a visiting scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (2014). In 2014-2019 2014-2018 she worked on the project “Pietà in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Jewish and Christian art: A Comparative Study” as part of the post-doctoral internship “Fuga” granted by the National Science Centre of Poland. In 2019-2020 within the Rothschild Foundation grant she worked on representations of Job in modern Jewish Art”.
She has recently published a book by Brill based on her Ph.D. thesis on visual representations of Judith, Esther, and Shulamite in modern Jewish art. She has also published in Ars Judaica, Images: A Journal of Jewish Art ad Visual Culture, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies and Religion and the Arts.
Her research has focused on modern painting, sculpture and graphics in Poland, Europe and in the United States. Her research focuses on twentieth-century Jewish art and culture in Israel, Europe and Americas, and the contribution of Jewish artists to modern art. She is also interested in Jewish history and literature, studies in memory, and Jewish identity. She has lectured on Jewish and Israeli art, culture of Polish Jews, modern Israeli culture and film and Hebrew language at the Higher School of Hebrew Philology, at Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań, and at the Maria Curie University of Lublin.
Selected publications
- Reading Pietà through the Experience of the Holocaust by Eastern European Artists (Mané-Katz, Erna Rosenstein, Moshe Bernstein and Zygmunt Menkes (w przygotowaniu)
- Recepcja motywy Piety w sztuce wybranych artystów żydowskich i chrześcijańskich w XX w (w przygotowaniu)
- „I Am the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Valleys” : Visualising the Metaphors of the Song in Modern Jewish Art” w: The Song of Songs in Its Context, BETL 310, red. Pierre van Hecke, Leuven 2020 ( w druku)
- Wizualizacje losu ofiar żydowskich pogromie. Pieta w twórczości artystów żydowskich z Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, [w:] Pogromy Żydów na ziemiach polskich w XIX i XX. T.1. Literatura i sztuka, red. Sławomir Buryła, Warszawa 2018, s. 269-289
- Pietà in Jacob Steinhardt‘s early oeuvre, „Images. A Journal of Jewish art and visual culture„, 10, 2017, s.84-96
- „Między Opłakiwaniem a Pietą. Inspiracje motywami pasyjnymi w twórczości Samuela Hirszenberga, Wilhelma Wachtla i Leopolda Pilichowskiego”, [w:] Bracia Hirszenbergowie – w poszukiwaniu ziemi obiecanej. Hirszenbergs Brothers: In search of the promised land, red. Adam Klimczak, Teresa Śmiechowska, Łódź-Warszawa 2017, (katalog cyfrowy), s. 455-476 (w jęz. polskim i angielskim)
- „Teaching Jewish art in Poland„, Ars Judaica, 13, 2017, s.11-12
- „Dialogue with Christian art: The Pietà in early 20th century Jewish art”, [w:] Art in Jewish society, red. Jerzy Malinowski, Małgorzata Stolarska-Fronia, Renata Piątkowska, Tamara Sztyma, Warszawa-Toruń 2016, s. 145-159
- Recenzja książki (Review): Samantha Baskind, „Jewish artists and the Bible in twentieth-century America”, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014, „Journal of Modern Jewish Studies”, 16:1, 2017, s. 172-173
- „Challenging the Non-Jewish Images of a Jewish Queen: Portrayals of Esther in early twentieth –century Jewish art”, Ars Judaica, 12, 2016, s. 71-92
- „W poszukiwaniu inspiracji historią, literaturą i Biblią. Refleksje nad wybranymi postaciami z twórczości Maurycego Gottlieba”, [w:] Maurycy Gottlieb: W poszukiwaniu tożsamości/In Search for identity, red. Maria Milanowska, Łódź 2014, s. 69-85; 87- 102 (w jęz. pol. i ang.)
- „Biblical Literature in Jewish Art: The Iconography of the Song of Songs in the Art of Wilhelm Wachtel (1875-1952) and Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1927)”, [w:] Studies in Hebrew Language, literature and culture: Proceedings of the 20th Hebrew scientific conference in Europe, Poznań-Toruń, 2013, s. 69-78 (w jęz. hebr.)
- Portrayals of ‚Biblical’ women in Maurycy Gottlieb and Wilhelm Wachtel’s painting: A Semiotic and an iconographic approach to the pictures of Judith and Salome”, [w:] Jewish Artists and Central –Eastern Europe, red. Jerzy Malinowski, Renata Piątkowska, Tamara Sztyma-Knasiecka, Warszawa 2010, s.183-195.
- „Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879) – Chrystus nauczający w Kafarnaum (1878-79): ikonografia żydowska czy chrześcijańska?”, [w:] Różni Razem, red. Jolanta Żyndul, Warszawa 2007, s.157-170
- Portrayals of Judith, Esther, and the Shulamite in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Jewish Art (książka, w przygotowaniu)
- Pietà in Modern Jewish and Christian Art (książka, w przygotowaniu)
Ostatnia aktualizacja 13/03/2023