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Obj. ID: 44813
Modern Jewish Art
  Korczak frieze in Miller Center in University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA, 1982, 2006

© Samuel D. Gruber, Photographer: Gruber, Samuel D., 2022

Name

Homage to Janusz Korczak

Who is Commemorated?

Janusz Korczak and Jewish Children 

Description

The work is a large rectangular panel worked in plaster in high relief and then cast in bronze. This is an abstraction of a train on a track.  The engine is on the far left. The front of the engine resembles a death’s head. A seated figure appears to be at the train controls, and another figure is lying down. Connected to the engine is a flatcar, on which stands the figure of Korczak – a man in a suit carrying a child – who is flanked by a child on either side. Behind these figures rises an architectural element suggesting buildings in a town, a jumble of architectural elements one of which is a church with a domed tower surmounted by a cross. Indistinct faces peer out from the windows. The architectural group recalls the way towns are depicted in medieval Italian paintings (such as those of Assisi).

At the far right of the scenes are attached box cars, the large of which shows a shut door with feet hanging from the bottom. Two large, abstracted figures in high relief are set on the upper part of the train. On the left, above the engine, a figure with outstretched arms falls from above toward Korzack and the children. Attached to this figure are curved elements than might be wings, and the figure may be an angel. By the legs of the falling figure is an oval shield, that is engraved with sun rays. Another figure, defined only with inscribed lines, falls to the right of the children. This figure may be falling from the window above. Lastly, poised between the architectural roof and the top of the box car are two large abstracted figures entwined in a struggle or embrace. 

Inscriptions

On the plaque under the panel:

HERZL EMANUEL
United States, 1914-2002
Homage to Dr. Januz Korczak, 1981
Bronze
Collection of the University of Mami
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Phillip Frost

On the plaque to the right of the panel: 

Homage to Dr. Janusz Korczak (1878-1942)

This sculpture, executed in Rome, Italy between 1978-1982,
Depicts the trains the carried millions of men, women
and children to their tragic end in the death camps of
Nazi-occupied, Poland. More particularly, it honors the
Deep passion and sacrifice of Sr. Janusz Korczak, a Polish-
Jewish physician, writer and visionary educator of the
young. He was such a well-known and well-respected
figure in Poland that the Nazis gave him the opportunity
to escape the Death Camp to which the 200 orphans
in his care were ordered. He chose instead to remain with
them and give them what comfort he could as they were
all herded to their death in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
Though he was known professionally by his Polish name of
Janusz Korczak, he was to die as Henryk Goldszmit, the name
with which he was born.

 Sculptor

Herzl Emanuel (1914-2002)
Gift of
Dr. and Mrs. Phillip Frost
April, 1983

 Re-dedicated by Dr. and Mrs. Phillip Frost on February 21, 2006.

Commissioned by

Dr. and Mrs. Phillip Frost

Summary and Remarks
Remarks

14 image(s)

sub-set tree:

Name/Title
Korczak frieze in Miller Center in University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL | Unknown
Object Detail
Monument Setting
Date
1982, 2006 (installed and rededicated)
Synagogue active dates
Reconstruction dates
Artist/ Maker
Emanuel, Herzl
{"4338":"(1914-2002)"}
Historical Origin
Unknown
Community type
Unknown |
Congregation
Unknown
Location
United States of America (USA) | Florida | Coral Gables, FL
| University of Miami, Solomon Merrick Building 5202 University Drive, Coral Gables, FL
Site
Unknown
School/Style
Unknown|
Period
Unknown
Period Detail
Collection
Unknown |
Documentation / Research project
Unknown
Iconographical Subject
Textual Content
Languages of inscription
Material / Technique
bronze
Material Stucture
Material Decoration
Material Bonding
Material Inscription
Material Additions
Material Cloth
Material Lining
Tesserae Arrangement
Density
Colors
Construction material
Measurements
Height
Length
Width
Depth
Circumference
Thickness
Diameter
Weight
Axis
Panel Measurements
Condition
Extant
Documented by CJA
Surveyed by CJA
Present Usage
Present Usage Details
Condition of Building Fabric
Architectural Significance type
Historical significance: Event/Period
Historical significance: Collective Memory/Folklore
Historical significance: Person
Architectural Significance: Style
Architectural Significance: Artistic Decoration
Urban significance
Significance Rating
0
Ornamentation
Custom
Contents
Codicology
Scribes
Script
Number of Lines
Ruling
Pricking
Quires
Catchwords
Hebrew Numeration
Blank Leaves
Direction/Location
Façade (main)
Endivances
Location of Torah Ark
Location of Apse
Location of Niche
Location of Reader's Desk
Location of Platform
Temp: Architecture Axis
Arrangement of Seats
Location of Women's Section
Direction Prayer
Direction Toward Jerusalem
Coin
Coin Series
Coin Ruler
Coin Year
Denomination
Signature
Colophon
Scribal Notes
Watermark
Hallmark
Group
Group
Group
Group
Group
Trade Mark
Binding
Decoration Program
Suggested Reconsdivuction
History/Provenance

On an exterior wall of the Solomon Merrick Building at the University of Miami, a large bronze relief by American-Jewish artist Herzl Emanuel, was installed in 2006 at the building which houses the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies.

The relief, titled Homage to Janusz Korczak, had been donated to the university in April 1983 by Dr. and Mrs. Phillip Frost, at the time of an exhibition of Emanuel recent work at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. It gift became part of the university art collection, but was not displayed.

When created by the artist, it was an “Homage,” probably not conceived as a Holocaust memorial for a specific place. When it was re-dedicated, however, in its present location in the breezeway by the entrance of the Miller Center and the School of Education by Dr. and Mrs. Frost in 2006, it took on the role of de facto Holocaust memorial. The artwork is now very visible close to the entrance to the Jewish Studies Program and the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Jewish Studies. There is a new bronze plaque that provides historical information on who Korczak was and how he and the orphans under his charge were deported from Warsaw and killed in Treblinka.

Herzl Emanuel was a note American sculptor who spent much of his career in Europe, including 20 years in Rome, during which time he made this work. He was deeply influenced by the flattened perspective of medieval Italian art, and he found inspiration in Renaissance humanist art. But, according to Virginia M. Mecklenburg, who interviewed the artist in 1988 for the Smithsonian Museum of American Art,

 “it was Picasso’s Guernica that had the most dramatic impact in his life. Calling it the most significant work of art of the twentieth century, Emanuel has sought to achieve in his own work a fusion of abstracted form with tragic content that parallels Picasso’s powerful statement. Since the 1930s, his sculpture has evolved from an Analytical Cubist format to an Expressionism in which the human form is distorted to convey the human condition. Yet by intertwining limbs and connecting gazes in multifigural compositions, he offers up human relationships as notes of hope that temper the effects of a tragic existence.”

This perfectly describes Homage to Janusz Korzack. Beginning in the 1970s Emanuel created several works about the Holocaust. A smaller version of the Homage to Janusz Korzack was made in 1978. Two other large works in this series of are “They Fought Back,” and “The Final Solution.” 

Main Surveys & Excavations
Sources

Herzl, Emanuel, The Final Solution and They Fought Back: Two Relief Wall Sculptures by Herzl Emanuel (Westport, CT, Published by the author, 1988)

Herzl Emanuel Sculptures and Drawings 1962-83 (Miami Beach: Bass Museum of Art, 1983)

Raynor, Vivian. “Drawings in Stamford, Herzl Emanuel in Westport,” New York Times, December 25, 1988, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1988/12/25/101588.html?pageNumber=117 (accessed November 27, 2022)

“Herzl Emanuel,” Smithsonian Museum of American Art, https://americanart.si.edu/artist/herzl-emanuel-14410 (accessed November 27, 2022)
Type
Documenter
Samuel D. Gruber | 2022
Author of description
Samuel D. Gruber | 2022
Architectural Drawings
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Computer Reconstruction
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Section Head
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Language Editor
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Donor
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Negative/Photo. No.
The following information on this monument will be completed: