WHO: Photographer Luigi Toscano; two Holocaust survivors, Rachel Miller and Oskar Jakob, who live in St. Louis and are featured in the exhibit; and exhibit organizer Dee Dee Simon.
WHAT: Preview of “Lest We Forget”
WHEN: 3:15 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20
WHERE: Ann and Andrew Tisch Park, Washington University in St. Louis
Since 2014, Italian-German photographer Luigi Toscano has created portraits of more than 500 Holocaust survivors. Last spring, Toscano traveled to St. Louis to photograph 12 survivors now living here. Beginning Oct. 20, those portraits will be featured as part of “Lest We Forget,” a public art installation on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis.
Toscano has photographed survivors from Germany, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine to Israel, the Netherlands and across the United States. His work has been seen in exhibitions around the world. He has received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, that nation’s highest honor, and been designated as a UNESCO Artist of Peace by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
The exhibition is hosted by WashU’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. It will remain on view through Nov. 6.
DIRECTIONS AND PARKING: Tisch Park is located at the east end of Washington University’s Danforth Campus, near the intersection of Skinker and Lindell boulevards. Validated parking will be available in the university’s East End Garage. Entrances to the garage are located on Forsyth Boulevard at Wrighton Way and Forest Park Parkway at Hoyt Drive.
TOUR AND INTERVIEWS: “Lest We Forget” will open with a public ceremony at 5 p.m. in WashU’s Steinberg Hall. However, from approximately 3:15 to 4:30 p.m., Toscano and Dee Dee Simon, who organized the St. Louis portraits, will host a preview of the installation for local survivors. This will be the first time the survivors have seen Toscano’s portraits of them reproduced at full size (approximately five by seven feet each).
Available for interviews will be Toscano and Simon as well as local survivors Rachel Miller and Oskar Jakob. To arrange interviews, please contact Liam Otten at 314-874-6331 or Liam_Otten@wustl.edu.
