Trace a family history through the journey of a small figurine

This article is part of our last Fine Arts & Exhibitions special report, on how artistic institutions help the public to discover new options for the future.

The tiny ivory figurine of a hare made a remarkable journey, traveling from Paris in the 1870s to Vienna at the turn of the century to a mattress where it was hidden and hidden from the Germans during World War II. It finally made its way to Tokyo and then to England, when ceramist Edmund de Waal inherited it from his great-uncle.

Mr. De Waal forged the path of this object, a Japanese decorative sculpture called netsuke, in his 2010 memoir “The Amber-Eyed Hare: A Hidden Legacy”. Published with wide acclaim and translated into over 30 languages, the book examines Mr. de Waal’s own journey into memory and research into his family – an influential Jew descended from Charles Joachim Ephrussi, who built a fortune in the distribution of grain and oil. in Odessa – and their items, starting with the 264 netsuke he inherited.

Now the Hare has another stop on its journey, at the Jewish Museum in New York City, where an exhibition based on Mr. de Waal’s book opens on November 19, giving the text an unusual second life in physical form.

“This is a rare opportunity for anyone writing a book to see a different iteration of your ideas visually,” Mr. de Waal said in a recent telephone interview. The show, also called “The Hare with the Amber Eyes, “ will bring together works of art, ephemera, documents, photographs and other objects that trace the history of the Ephrussi family from the 17th century through the conflicts and dislocation of the 20th and until today.

One of the central figures of the memoirs and the exhibition is Charles Ephrussi, grandson of the patriarch of the family and art historian based in Paris in the 19th century. He collected many items, including the netsuke, which he then sent to Vienna as a wedding present for his cousin, Mr. de Waal’s great-grandfather. (Mr. de Waal is related to the Ephrussi family through his grandmother Elisabeth, who was married to Hendrik de Waal, a Dutch lawyer.)

The unconventional idea of ​​building an exhibition around the book came to Claudia Gould, director of the Jewish Museum, shortly after joining the museum in 2011 and reading “The Hare with the Amber Eyes”.

“I could really visualize everything: the Manets, the netsuke, all that,” Ms. Gould said. “I contacted Edmund out of the blue. I sent him a cold email and said, “I want to do a show based on your book. “

It would take another decade for the show to come together. In 2019, after Mr. de Waal donated numerous archival documents from his family to the Jewish Museum in Vienna, this museum organized an exhibition tracing the cultural and social history of the Ephrussi family. It became the most visited exhibit in the history of the museum and served as a kind of reunion for family members who had been dispersed and separated for decades. “It was this extraordinary moment of revelation,” said Mr. de Waal.

Many of the same objects will travel to the Jewish Museum in New York, but the exhibition is conceived and conceived differently, drawing closely on the memoirs of Mr. de Waal. “It went from a cultural story of a diasporic Jewish family, which I think the Vienna exhibition did very effectively, to a much more experiential and immersive experience,” said de Waal. “It takes the momentum of my book itself and guides you through this discovery of one thing after another.”

It was part of the curator’s intention: to allow viewers to experience something like Mr de Waal’s own journey as they uncover chapters of his family’s history through artifacts. To this end, design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro has collaborated with M. de Waal and the Jewish Museum to create six galleries that will evoke time and place. A dedicated gallery in Paris will introduce Charles Ephrussi in his role of collector, historian, patron and inspirer of artists ranging from Manet to Marcel Proust. Another, dedicated to Vienna, will highlight the architecture of 19th century Vienna, notably with the Ephrussi Palace and the Stadttempel, the city’s main synagogue. And in another, some of the collectors’ paintings will be hung “salon style”, close together and from floor to ceiling in several rows.

“This hanging places the work more in the context of ways of looking at 19th century paintings,” said Stephen Brown, curator of “The Hare with Amber Eyes”. “At the same time, it suggests those ideas of presence and absence which are such an important part of de Waal’s memory and memories.”

Indeed, a central question for the exhibition is how to represent absence. How can a visual exhibit show things that have been lost and destroyed alongside what is left?

One way the museum has approached these questions is to return repeatedly to Mr. de Waal’s text, using it as a sort of narrative retrieval of objects, especially those that have never been retrieved. There will be relatively little mural text in the exhibit, Mr. Brown said; instead, the program will include a large audio component, featuring Mr. de Waal reading excerpts from “The Hare with the Amber Eyes”.

And, fittingly, the exhibit will end with 168 of the netsuke, including the hare, on display in a display case that was in Mr. de Waal’s own home.

“In a way, it takes you back through the entire history of this author and his relationship to these Japanese objects, which formed the basis of all his journey and discovery,” Mr. Brown said. “The fact that these passed down and stayed with the family, through everything, indicates transience and loss, but also continuity.”

The show tells the story of a particular family and its history. But its resonances and implications go further. “It’s a very beautiful poetic story, and also a Jewish story of migration,” Ms. Gould said. “And I think this show is for everyone who has been displaced and lost their art and their home.”