Hyman Bloom died Wednesday at age 96. (Holland Cotter’s obit here. Image via Art Critical.)
Selma Waldman died last year in Seattle at age 78.(My obit here. Images via Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.)
Although he enjoyed wide critical favor in the 1950s, both artists are essentially outsiders. They are center stage in a particular moment only in so far as their work is misunderstood in it. Where they find resonance is with each other.
Even though he was mystical and she materialist, they are each best understood in the context of their shared Jewish culture, what Bloom called a “weeping from the heart.” A weeping and a joy. Jewish culture was existentialist thousands of years before the French defined the term. Bloom and Waldman confront the horrors of life and pay them back with radiance.
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