Windows of Change
The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and Their Salons
If you ask Bob Winston why art is important, he’ll tell you a story.
In 2005, Winston chanced upon an elderly woman emerging from the Green Line, lost and disoriented, clutching a clipping from the Boston Globe with a review of the McMullen Museum exhibition, The Power of Conversation: Jewish Women and Their Salons. “My synagogue friends told me I had to see this,” she said. “Take me there.”
As he led her to Devlin Hall, they talked. “You’re Catholic, and I’m Jewish,” she said. “We have a lot in common.” They talked about Jesus’ role as a Jewish rabbi and a great teacher, and Winston, a devout lifelong Catholic, still gets emotional as he recalls, “I was amazed at the depth of her faith.” She told him about the many relatives she’d lost to the Holocaust. Winston was deeply moved by the serendipitous encounter, which, he says, made him see his own faith in a new light. He was also immensely proud that the McMullen Museum had drawn this extraordinary woman, entirely unfamiliar with BC, to the Heights.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (German, 1800–1882)
Portrait of Fanny Hensel, 1842 Oil on canvas Daniel M. Friedenberg, New York
Florine Stettheimer (American, 1871–1944)
Portrait of My Sister, Carrie W. Stettheimer, 1923 Oil on canvas Columbia University in the City of New York Gift of the Estate of Ettie Stettheimer, 1967
Max Beerbohm (British, 1872-1956)
Sir Reginald Turner (1st Baronet) Pencil, crayon and gray wash on paper Gift of Michael de Lisio McMullen Museum of Art, 1995.17
Johann Karl Kretschmar (German, 1769-1847)
Portrait of Amalie Beer, c. 1803 Oil on canvas Hans-und-Luise-Richter-Stiftung/Stadtmuseum Berlin
Berta and Sophie Szeps, Vienna, 1880s
Photograph Private collection, Palo Alto, California
Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections
More recently, he was awed by thousand-year-old manuscripts in Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections, a collaboration with Harvard University and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. For Winston, these fragile and beautiful works, created by faithful monks laboring for untold years, vividly illustrated the development of his religious tradition. “We saw early Christianity at its best,” he recalls.
Equestrian knight entering and leaving a city—Cutting from Lancelot du Lac—Dunois Master (illuminator)
Paris, France, c. 1440–50—McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1995.4
Heads of the archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Annunciate (cuttings)
Prague, Bohemia, c. 1415–20—Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, 1947.79–80; Alpheus Hyatt Purchasing Fund
St. Barbara and scenes from her life
Ff. 112v–13r from the Emerson-White Hours—Ghent Associates (illuminators)—Probably Bruges, Flanders, c. 1480—Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 443
The Pentecost
F. 121r from a book of hours—Jean Bourdichon (1457–1521, illuminator)—Tours, France, c. 1515–20—Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 6.T.1
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