Photo By Gail

Deeply enmeshed with his hometown, Alex Israel (b. 1982) explores how popular media and Hollywood are central to the Los Angeles interpretation of the American Dream and the nuclear family. Created specifically for the Jewish Museum, the work reflects on the prominence of portraits of mothers throughout the museum collection.

Israel’s imagery connects to the matrilineal basis of Judaism and stereotypes of the loving but smothering yiddishe mamaleh (Jewish Mother). In the artist’s words, “I realized the most Jewish thing I could possibly do would be to make a painting of my mother.”

Photographed in the Jewish Museum in NYC.