We Who Arrived Eastern European Artists and American Modernism

This exhibition will feature 60 works by immigrant artists (David Burliuk, Max Weber, Ben Shahn, Eugene Berman, Jules Olitski, Anton Refregier) who led 20th-c. art movements (Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Realism, Dada)—all from the collection of Jan and Larysa Vulfin.

These artists traveled mostly to New York, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, navigating a new language, art networks, and social mores. They brought artistic skills, but also new ideas and approaches to the U.S. Through art circles, exhibitions, and teaching, they expanded the parameters and functions of modern art, highlighting its relevance to the rapidly changing world, and thus fundamentally changing American art.

The exhibition poses interdisciplinary questions about how immigrant artists challenged and reshaped American art and identity: What makes an American artist? How does identity shape artistic experience? What do artists’ immigration stories reveal about belonging, creativity, and cultural transformation? We will also consider how personal and professional networks shaped these artists’ opportunities and trajectories.

In addition to the catalog, public programming (talks, community conversations, curriculum-based visits for K-12 and university students, guided tours) will deepen engagement with themes of identity, migration and cultural contribution.