Vivian Mann

Dr. Vivian Mann is director of the Master's Program in Jewish Art and Visual Culture at The Jewish Theological Seminary. For many years, Dr. Mann was Morris and Eva Feld Chair of Judaica at The Jewish Museum, where she created numerous exhibitions and their catalogs, among them Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy; Convivencia: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Spain; and, most recently, Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land. In 2000, her Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts was published by Cambridge University Press, and in 2005, her Art and Ceremony in Jewish Life: Essays in the History of Jewish Art, was published by Pindar Press. In 2010, Dr. Mann curated the exhibition Uneasy Communion: Jews, Christians and Altarpieces in Medieval Spain at the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA), and contributed to and edited the accompanying catalog. Her many articles and lectures cover a broad range of topics in medieval art and the history of Jewish art.

Dr. Mann has been a recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, the NEA Fellowship for Museum Professionals, the NEH Fellowship for Research, and the NEH Collaborative Projects Grant for Interpretative Research (with Richard I. Cohen). She has also been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University. In 1999, Dr. Mann was awarded the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award in Jewish Thought by the National Foundation for Jewish Culture for her successful efforts at establishing a new field of Jewish studies (Jewish art) and the Master's Program in Jewish Art and Visual Culture at JTS. Dr. Mann is a founding editor of Images: A Journal in Jewish Art and Visual Culture, the first American journal in the field.

Published Works

Books

The Jewish Museum, New York

Crowning Glory: Silver Torah Ornaments of The Jewish Museum, New York, editor and coauthor

Art and Ceremony in Jewish Life

Exhibition Catalogs

Danzig 1939: Treasures of a Destroyed Community, coauthor and editor

A Tale of Two Cities: Jewish Life in Frankfurt and Istanbul 1750–1870, coauthor and editor

Kings and Citizens: The History of the Jews in Denmark 1622–1983, coeditor with Norman L. Kleeblatt

The Precious Legacy: Judaic Treasures from the Czechoslovak State Collections, coauthor

Treasures of The Jewish Museum, coauthor with Norman L. Kleeblatt

Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy; Italian translation: I Tal Ya': Duemilla Anni di Arte e Vita Ebraica in Italia, coauthor and editor

Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain, coeditor and author

From Court Jews to the Rothschilds: Art, Patronage, and Power, 1600–1800, coeditor and author with Richard I. Cohen

Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land, coauthor and editor