topic:"Fine Arts" found 2 records - The Canadian Jewish Heritage Network

Scope and Content: The fonds contains documentation, professional and working materials of Rita Briansky’s many projects and works. The fonds consists of textual records, including correspondence, selections of the artist’s writing; graphic material, including sketchbooks and photographic documentation of…

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Collection: Rita Briansky Fonds

Description Level: Fonds

Material Type: multiple media

Physical Description: 1.0m of textual documents ; 54 sketchbooks ; 1623 photographs ; 3 audio cassettes

Scope and Content: The fonds contains documentation, professional and working materials of Rita Briansky’s many projects and works. The fonds consists of textual records, including correspondence, selections of the artist’s writing; graphic material, including sketchbooks and photographic documentation of her work; audio recordings of Rita Briansky’s interviews and reviews; newspaper clippings, bibliographic reference publications and articles citing the artist’s work.

Date: 1910 - 2011 [predominant 1950 to 2000]

Fonds No.: 1291

Storage Location: JPL

Creator: Rita Briansky

History / Biographical: Rita Briansky, painter, printmaker-etcher and teacher, was born in 1925 in Grajewo, Poland. Together with her mother and two sisters, Bella and Becky, the family moved to Ansonville, Ontario in 1929. Here, they joined Briansky’s father and uncle, Jake Perlmutter, and his family in Ansonville, which at the time had a small Jewish community. In 1939, the family moved to Val d’Or, Quebec and finally to Montreal in 1941. Then in her mid-teens, Rita Briansky was a keen student who nourished a continued interest in art. With the move to Montreal, the Briansky Family struggled financially and was unable to afford the fee for Rita’s high school education. It was the Yiddish poet Ida Massey who found Rita a job so she would be able to pay for her schooling. This encouragement served as the beginning of a valuable friendship, as well as helping foster Briansky’s artistic career. Massey later introduced Rita to Alexander Berkowitz who at the time was giving art classes at the St. Urbain Street ‘Y’. Her training and experience quickly expanded, taking the young artist through Montreal’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts and New York’s Arts Student League. In 1949, Rita married fellow painter, Joseph Prezament.The couple had two children together, Anna and Wendy. Briansky’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions both in Canada and internationally. Her body of work is diverse in both theme and subject matter, reflecting her interests in fields such as astronomy and the natural world, while remaining deeply rooted in her own experiences. Following her travels to her birth place and memorial sites in Poland in 1995, Briansky produced the ‘Kaddish series’ as her reflection on the trauma of the Holocaust. Other series have broadly used landscape, portraiture and still lifes as a passionate response to the world around her and that speak fundamentally to the human condition. Briansky has participated in multiple collaborative projects, for example the children's book “On Stage, Please” with dancer/ choreographer Veronica Tennant. Briansky is long-established within Montreal’s art community working and living alongside a tight-knit group of artists. In addition, she has worked as teacher, both of art history and studio arts. Briansky’s artistic practice has won her multiple awards and her work is included in the permanent collections of institutions such as the National Gallery in Ottawa, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Language: English; French; Yiddish

Custodial History: The material was donated by Rita Briansky in August 2012.

Arrangement: Textual material in Series 2 through 4 was given an imposed order as no discernable original order could be identified. The graphic material in Series 3, 6 and 7 were vetted for duplicates, though otherwise maintain the order given by the artist.

Notes: Selected images from Series 1,6 and 7 have been digitized and are available to researchers upon request.

Access Restrictions: Privacy restrictions may apply

Reproduction Restrictions: Copyright restrictions may apply. For queries please contact Head of Archives, Shannon Hodge: shannon.hodge@jplmontreal.org

Finding Aid: Detailed finding aid available, file level control

Accession No.: 12-015

Name Access: Briansky, Rita

Subjects: Briansky, Rita. 1925 -; Artists; Fine Arts; Drawings; Maze, Ida, 1893-1962.

Archival / Genealogical: Archival Descriptions

Repository: Jewish Public Library Archives

Images

Saidye Bronfman Centre Fonds

https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn34235

Collection: Saidye Bronfman Centre Fonds

Description Level: Fonds

Material Type: multiple media

Physical Description: 27.3 linear metres of multiple media

Fonds No.: 1061

Scope and Content: General information about the Saidye Bronfman Theatre, but also specific records about different events that occurred in it and/or were organized by it. There are multiple files about plays with detailed descriptions about the budgets, the scripts and the costumes to name a few. Exhibitions’ …

Collection: Saidye Bronfman Centre Fonds

Description Level: Fonds

Material Type: multiple media

Physical Description: 27.3 linear metres of multiple media

Scope and Content: General information about the Saidye Bronfman Theatre, but also specific records about different events that occurred in it and/or were organized by it. There are multiple files about plays with detailed descriptions about the budgets, the scripts and the costumes to name a few. Exhibitions’ explanations are also available to the interest of the public. Festival programs such as Family and Puppet Festival and activities such as Artapalooza are also in the Fonds. Grant proposals, donations by individuals and businesses, overall budgets, renovation information, letters between the centre and other institutions or people related to the centre and its activities, etc.

Fonds No.: 1061

Storage Location: JPL

History / Biographical: Initially funded by the Bronfman family and named for matriarch Saidye to honor her many years of deep and active interest in the arts and the YM-YWHA, the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts was inaugurated on September 24, 1967 as a non-profit cultural centre for the arts. The centre was home to an art gallery, theatres staging English, French and Yiddish language productions; the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre and the Youth Institute. It also housed the School of Fine Arts where classrooms were established as well as fine arts studios, dance and acting classes. The purpose the Centre was ‘to bring together in the common pursuit of learning and exploration men and women of all ages, religions, races, language or ethnic origins who identify with the mosaic of cultures which make up our province and our country.’ The art gallery was known internationally for its innovative leadership and excellence in contemporary art. Canadian, as well as international artists showed their multi-media exhibitions in the 3 500 square foot gallery. The Saidye Bronfman Centre hosted different shows and plays for older as well as younger audiences. Many plays were shown in the Yiddish Theatre to a larger public. There were also plays for children mostly organized by the Youth Institute which hosted stand-up comedy and activities for a younger audience. Artapalooza which was organized annually was also very popular and children participated heavily in the many activities related to it. The theatres of the SBC played an important role in the Montreal Jewish Community since ‘the Yiddish Theatre and its founder, Dora Wasserman [were] the recipients of many awards in recognition of the essential role they play in preserving the Yiddish language and cultural heritage.’ The School of Fine attracted people who were passionate about painting, photography, jewellery and much more. The School held sculpture symposiums and numerous photographs and painting exhibitions in order to show diverse projects in a myriad of mediums and subjects. It offered courses to approximately 1 000 students, ranging from novice to advanced levels. In the last year of its existence, the Saidye Bronfman Centre went through a major change. According to Kalichman, co-president of the YM-YWHA, a complex series of pressures led to the changes as well as financial issues for the Centre’s three entities; the gallery, the theatre and the School of Fine Arts. These pressures meant that these entities were directly competing for funding. Eventually these pressures led to the closure of the Saidye Bronfman Centre as it was under the administration of the YM-YWHA and the founding of the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts at the ‘Saidye’. The new centre has a new focal point concentrating strictly on performing arts. Because of this, the decision was made to close the School of Fine Arts and to discontinue the art gallery from the Segal Centre.

Language: English; French

Custodial History: The collection came from the Saidye Bronfman Centre and the YM-YWHA.

Access Restrictions: Privacy laws may apply

Reproduction Restrictions: Copyright laws may apply

Subjects: Saidye Bronfman Centre [Montreal, Quebec].; Renovation; Buildings; Theatrical Productions.; School of Fine Arts; Fine Arts; Youth Institute; Art gallery; Correspondence; Administrative information; Marketing; Publicity; Young Men-Young Women's Hebrew Association, Montreal.

Archival / Genealogical: Archival Descriptions

Repository: Jewish Public Library Archives