From gilded lions to high-stepping horses, the sacred to the secular, and the Old World to the New, “Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel” traces the journey of Jewish woodcarvers and other artisans from Eastern and Central Europe to America and the unsung role they played in establishing a distinct Jewish culture in communities throughout the United States. The exuberant artworks stand as a testament to a history of survival and transformation and provide a surprising revelation of the link that was forged between the synagogue and the carousel as immigrant Jewish artists transferred symbolic visual elements into this vernacular American idiom.

The first major study of this important aspect of the Jewish contribution to American folk art, the exhibition features approximately one hundred artworks and objects, including rare documentary photographs of Eastern European synagogue arks and carved gravestones, sacred carvings, papercuts, and carousel animals.

Murray Zimiles, guest curator

Coordinated by Stacy C. Hollander, senior curator and director of exhibitions

Exhibition Catalog (winner of the 2007 National Jewish Book Award for Visual Arts)
Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel
By Murray Zimiles, with Vivian B. Mann; foreword by Gerard C. Wertkin. Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England/Brandeis University Press in association with the American Folk Art Museum, 2007. 170 pages. Available at the museum shop.

• New York Times review
• New York Sun review
• Antiques and the Arts review
• New York Times profile of Murray Zimiles

Major support for “Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel” and the accompanying catalog was provided by Michael Steinhardt; Kekst and Company; the David Berg Foundation; the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation; the Smart Family Foundation; the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, Allentown, Pennsylvania; the Betty and John A. Levin Fund; the Robert Lehman Foundation; the Nathan Cummings Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts; and the New York Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Museum exhibitions are supported in part by the Leir Charitable Foundations in memory of Henry J. & Erna D. Leir, the Gerard C. Wertkin Exhibition Fund, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.