My Diaspora – the sculpture
“My Diaspora” is an assembled bronze sculpture I created to commemorate the very personal and tragic history of my family’s dissolution and partial destruction. It took me over 2 years, and was a difficult personal challenge because most of my earlier sculpture work had been only figurative in nature, with live models. Originally I intended it to convey both my separation from my family, and also my lifelong search for information about their fates --- especially that of my little sister Myriam, who was only 1 1/2 when I last saw her. I decided to use the visual metaphor of an inverted family tree, starting from a central trunk to symbolize our intact family at home in Frankfurt-am-Main in pre-war Germany; then sculpting branching limbs to represent each of the separations and dispersals of family members from our home and from each other. I began this piece with a sculpture of my sister, which I built from one of the last photographs I have of her, on her 5th (and probably her last) birthday.
My Diaspora started out as a story of my family’s tragic history, The sculpture memorializes the permanent separation of the men in the family ─ my father, Alfred, my brother Gustav and myself from the women -- my mother Trude, my sister Myriam, and my paternal grandmother, soon after Kristalnacht in November, 1938 when I was 3 1/2. Neither group ever saw the other again.
But as I sculpted it over many months, it became even more meaningful to me. It was no longer just about the dissolution of my family. It had become also a palpable way for me to express my hope that -- against all odds -- my sister Myriam somehow survived and might still be alive, and that someone who knows her today might one day encounter this piece at a Holocaust-related meeting, recognize Myriam, and so reunite us. So the hands in the sculpture are meant to represent both yearning for those lost relationships, but also, for my brother and myself, the possibility of reuniting with our sister Myriam.
And this sculpture became yet even more to me – it also became a symbol of what our rescue by international Jewish charity means, not only to those of my generation who were rescued, but also to our children and grandchildren, who -- were it not for the heroic, caring Jews and Christians who risked so much to save us – they would not be here today to enrich our adopted homeland, with their talent and enterprise.
About the Sculptor - Fred K. Manasse
I began my personal journey as an amateur artist working in stained glass, but soon found that two-dimensional world too constraining. I moved next to working in fired clay as a medium for creating bas-relief heads, animal and figurative sculpture, first at Framingham State College and then at the Harvard/Radcliffe Ceramics Studio. In time I came to realize that fired clay sculpture was also too limiting a medium for what I needed to express in my art, so I joined the West Concord Sculptors studio, as an apprentice to two master sculptors, to work in oil-based clay. Most of my work there was figurative and with live models. When subsequently one of the master sculptors started the Beaumont Sculpture Studio, I joined her there. I also have a home studio in Waltham, MA, where I work mostly on heads from photos and memory. I have exhibited in a number of galleries, including the Mill-Brook Gallery in Concord NH, the Cape Cod Arts Center in Brewster MA, and the Rubin-Frankel Gallery at Boston University, MA. Most recently I have begun to work in stone and am a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carving Center and Sculpting Studio in West Rutland,VT as well as being a member of the Cape Cod Arts Center.
But as I sculpted it over many months, it became even more meaningful to me. It was no longer just about the dissolution of my family. It had become also a palpable way for me to express my hope that -- against all odds -- my sister Myriam somehow survived and might still be alive, and that someone who knows her today might one day encounter this piece at a Holocaust-related meeting, recognize Myriam, and so reunite us. So the hands in the sculpture are meant to represent both yearning for those lost relationships, but also, for my brother and myself, the possibility of reuniting with our sister Myriam.
And this sculpture became yet even more to me – it also became a symbol of what our rescue by international Jewish charity means, not only to those of my generation who were rescued, but also to our children and grandchildren, who -- were it not for the heroic, caring Jews and Christians who risked so much to save us – they would not be here today to enrich our adopted homeland, with their talent and enterprise.
About the Sculptor - Fred K. Manasse
I began my personal journey as an amateur artist working in stained glass, but soon found that two-dimensional world too constraining. I moved next to working in fired clay as a medium for creating bas-relief heads, animal and figurative sculpture, first at Framingham State College and then at the Harvard/Radcliffe Ceramics Studio. In time I came to realize that fired clay sculpture was also too limiting a medium for what I needed to express in my art, so I joined the West Concord Sculptors studio, as an apprentice to two master sculptors, to work in oil-based clay. Most of my work there was figurative and with live models. When subsequently one of the master sculptors started the Beaumont Sculpture Studio, I joined her there. I also have a home studio in Waltham, MA, where I work mostly on heads from photos and memory. I have exhibited in a number of galleries, including the Mill-Brook Gallery in Concord NH, the Cape Cod Arts Center in Brewster MA, and the Rubin-Frankel Gallery at Boston University, MA. Most recently I have begun to work in stone and am a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carving Center and Sculpting Studio in West Rutland,VT as well as being a member of the Cape Cod Arts Center.
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