Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses to Open at the Fenimore Art Museum

Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel, a Major Traveling Exhibition from the American Folk Art Museum

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y., April 23, 2008-The Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New
York, is pleased to present Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the
Carousel, a major exhibition organized by the American Folk Art Museum, New York,
that tells the story of a little-known aspect of American carousel history and its
connection to Jewish visual culture. The exhibition will be on view May 24 through
September 1, 2008 at the Fenimore Art Museum.

The exhibition traces, for the first time, the journey of Jewish woodcarvers and papercut
artists from Eastern and Central Europe to America. Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses
highlights the unsung role these artisans played in establishing a distinct Jewish culture
in communities throughout the United States and provides a surprising revelation of the
link that was forged between the immigrant Jewish woodcarvers and the American
carousel industry. Many of the artisans who arrived in America between the 1880s and
1920s carved for their local synagogues; some also found work creating horses and
other animals for the flourishing carousel industry. Inspired by the memory of symbolic
references carved into majestic Torah arks and gravestones and cut into paper, they
translated these motifs into an American idiom, elevating carousel art into a powerful
sculptural expression of dynamic and animated forms.

The exhibition brings together extraordinary examples of majestic synagogue carvings-
gilded lions, Decalogues, crowns and eagles as well as intricate papercuts-juxtaposed
against dynamic carousel figures created for the great amusement parks of Coney Island
and elsewhere. Featuring more than 100 artworks, drawn from private and public
collections in the United States, Eastern Europe and Israel, the exhibition tells the story
of this fascinating aspect of Jewish and American visual culture.

Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses was organized by Murray Zimiles, guest curator, and
coordinated by Stacy C. Hollander, senior curator and director of exhibitions at the
American Folk Art Museum.

Guest Curator Murray Zimiles is the author of the fully illustrated 192-page companion
book, Gilded Lions And Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel, co-published by
the American Folk Art Museum with Brandeis University Press, an imprint of the
University Press of New England.  Zimiles is an artist and Kempner Distinguished
Professor at SUNY Purchase, where he has taught drawing and printmaking since 1977.
In addition, please visit the exhibition website at gildedlions.org, which was
conceptualized by George Blumenthal and funded by The Center for Online Judaic
Studies, Inc.

Major support for the exhibition and accompanying book was provided by Michael
Steinhardt; Kekst and Company; the David Berg Foundation; the Blanche and Irving
Laurie Foundation; the Smart Family Foundation; the Philip and Muriel Berman
Foundation, Allentown, Pennsylvania; the Betty and John A. Levin Fund; the Robert
Lehman Foundation; the Nathan Cummings Foundation; the National Endowment for the
Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts; and the New York Council for the
Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the Fenimore Art Museum
One of the nation's premier art institutions, the Fenimore Art Museum is home to an
exceptionally rich collection of American folk art and American Indian art as well as
important holdings in American decorative arts, photography, and twentieth-century art.
Founded in 1945 in Cooperstown, New York, the museum is part of the New York State
Historical Association (NYSHA), founded in 1899. The museum's renowned Eugene and
Clare Thaw Collection, housed in the American Indian Wing, is a masterpiece collection
of more than 800 art objects, representing a broad scope of North American cultures.
The collections of folk and American art include seminal works by Grandma Moses,
Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Cole, William Sidney Mount, and Benjamin West. The museum
offers a range of interactive educational programming for children, families, and adults,
including lectures and workshops for museum visitors and distance learning instruction
for classrooms nationwide. The museum further explores and examines our cultural
history by organizing and hosting nationally touring art and history exhibitions, including
Grandma Moses: Grandmother to the Nation; Treasures from Olana: The Landscapes of
Frederic Edwin Church; A Deaf Artist in Early America: The Worlds of John Brewster, Jr.;
and Ralph Fasanella's America.

The Fenimore Art Museum is located on 5798 State Hwy. 80, Lake Road, in Cooperstown.
The museum's Fenimore Café, overlooking beautiful Otsego Lake, features wonderful
views and a tranquil setting amid the terraced gardens. The Museum Shop offers fine
jewelry, art reproductions, and a wide selection of publications on folk art, history, and
Native American art. Museum admission is $11 for adults, $9.50 for visitors age 65 and
over, and $5 for children age 7 to 12; children 6 and under and NYSHA members are
admitted free. Reduced price combination admission tickets that include The Farmers'
Museum and The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum are also available. The
museum is open from April 1 through December 31; closed January through March,
except for special events and school groups. For museum hours or general information,
please call 1-888-547-1450 or visit www.fenimoreartmuseum.org.

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