George Segal and the Jewish Experience

Abstract

Joan Rosenbaum George Segal, who died last year at age seventy-five in South Brunswick, New Jersey, had enormous appeal, both as a groundbreaking yet accessible artist and as a warm and communicative man. Segal and his work influenced the lives of many around him, whether they were close friends or strangers who admired his art. Thinking about him makes me miss his unique presence in the art world. I had the great pleasure of entering the museum profession in the 1960s with a job at the Museum of Modern Art at the time when Segal's life-size, white plaster sculptures were first being shown at MoMA and other New York venues, and when he was speaking at various public forums. The exhibition of Segal's figures, which suggest the solitude and vulnerability of the human condition, coincided with grassroots anti-Vietnam protests by museum workers and artists. During these politically active years, the Art Workers' Coalition and the staff union at MoMA were formed. It was also the time that