• Nathaniel Jacobson (1916-1996) attended the Yale School of Art and painted in Boston. As a young artist in the early 1940s, he produced two epic paintings in response to the Holocaust, a rare subject for an American artist in the early war years. The paintings are large and colorful, with considerable wall power. In "The Bread of Affliction" (1940), a modern Passover ritual is observed against a backdrop from the original Exodus, while off to the side a modern refugee is fleeing Hitler with Torah in hand, and is left in despair at the edge of an abyss. The Seder table in the center of the painting is a place of sorrow rather than joy. Note the female figure hunched over her meal. Behind this scene are vignettes from Jewish history, including from the Exodus in Egypt. In its bright palette and otherworldly landscape, this painting reflects Jacobson’s stated interest in Renaissance painting, particularly the work of Giotto. The Bread of Affliction was exhibited in the 1941 exhibition “Directions in American painting” at the Carnegie Institute where it received an honorable mention.

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