HOLOCAUST MUSEUM LA PRESENTS “Ruth GRUBER: PHOTOJOURNALIST,
highlighting the work of the trailblazing photographer, journalist,
and humanitarian. The exhibit opens December 12, 2021 and will run
through April 13, 2022. GRUBER’s acclaimed work as an intrepid,
humanitarian photographer spanned more than five decades on four
continents.
Ruth Gruber (1911–2016) was born to Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn
and became the youngest PhD in the world, at age twenty, with a
dissertation on Virginia Woolf. In 1935, she was the first
correspondent to travel to the Siberian Gulag and Soviet Arctic.
She captured some of the earliest color images of Alaska’s vast
frontier, the lives and customs of the native population, and the
conditions and experiences of American soldiers. In 1944, as World War
II raged, Gruber stewarded the ship Henry Gibbins on a secret U.S.
government mission that brought nearly 1,000 Jewish refugees from
Europe to Fort Ontario in upstate New York. Gruber subsequently
shifted her attention to the lives of refugees and to issues of
rescue, sanctuary, and liberation, devoting the rest of her life to
humanitarian causes.
In 1947, Gruber’s exclusive photographs documenting the harrowing
voyage of the Exodus 1947—a ship carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees that
attempted to break the British blockade on immigration to
Palestine—were sent internationally via wire services to thousands
of newspapers and magazines. Her iconic images radically transformed
attitudes toward the plight of Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors
after the war. Following the establishment of the state of Israel,
Gruber photographed the waves of immigrants who poured into the new
country, while continuing her commitment to documenting the condition
of Jewish communities throughout the world.
Ruth Gruber devoted her life to fighting against injustice, advocating
for human rights, and asserting the basic dignity of all people. Her
determination to draw attention to the plight of refugees and
stateless people is as timely and relevant today as it was when she
took her iconic photographs of Holocaust survivors on the Exodus 1947.
Ruth Gruber, Photojournalist is a tribute to her extraordinary life
and to the humanitarian concerns that guided her work.
Organized by art historian and curator Maya Benton, and drawn from
Gruber's private archive, this exhibition includes never-before-seen
color photographs and vintage prints, made over more than half a
century, on four continents, alongside contemporary prints made from
her original negatives.
The opening event on December 12 at 2:00 pm will feature remarks from
Beth Kean, Holocaust Museum LA CEO; curator Maya Benton; and Patti
Kenner, Gruber’s longtime friend and executive producer of the film,
“Ahead of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber.”
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13/12/2021 Last update