Miami’s leading arts lovers, patrons, artists, cultural and community leaders declared the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU as the place to be this Season, at the U.S. premiere of Stranded in Shanghai: Arthur Rothstein’s Photographs of the Hongkew Ghetto, 1946, the timely exhibition featuring a lesson from history about tolerance, compassion for human suffering and solidarity. These themes ring true just as powerfully today during our troubled times as they did in the 1940s, when Shanghai became the last hope for desperate refugees fleeing Nazi terror. “The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU is thrilled to present the U.S. premiere of Stranded in Shanghai,” said the museum’s Executive Director, Susan Gladstone. “We are honored to shine a light on this little-known segment of history that mirrors so much of our present. We must know history in order to proceed successfully with our future. Rothstein’s works are

The Dutch national museum, the Rijksmuseum, is presenting High Society. Over thirty-five life-size portraits of powerful princes, eccentric aristocrats and fabulously wealthy citizens by the great masters of art history, including Cranach, Veronese, Velázquez, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Sargent, Munch and Manet. The centrepiece are Rembrandt’s spectacular wedding portraits, Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit which will be shown for the first time following their restoration. Never before has there been an exhibition dedicated to this most glamorous type of portrait: life-size, standing and full length. Loans have come from museums and private collections from all over the world including Paris, London, Florence, Vienna and Los Angeles. High Society also gives a glimpse into the informal life of the well-to-do. More than eighty prints and drawings from the Rijksmuseum’s own collection show what went on behind closed doors: parties

The influence of modern Greece on the lives and work of three influential artists is explored in a new exhibition at the British Museum this spring. Charmed lives in Greece: Ghika, Craxton, Leigh Fermor (8 March – 15 July 2018) examines the enduring friendship between Greek painter Niko Ghika, British painter John Craxton, and British writer Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor. All three made homes in Greece, which are an integral part of the exhibition. The show brings together their artworks, photographs, letters and personal possessions in the UK for the first time. The three men met at the end of the Second World War, becoming lifelong friends and spending much of their subsequent lives in Greece. Their shared love of the Hellenic world was fundamental to their work, as they embraced the sights, sounds, colours and people of Greek life. Together they contributed to a golden age of Anglo-Greek artistic and literary collaboration.

As jihadists swept across Iraq three years ago, he rescued a treasure trove of ancient religious manuscripts from near-certain destruction. Father Najeeb Michaeel is now training fellow Iraqis to preserve their heritage. “My duty is to save our heritage, a significant treasure,” the Dominican friar told AFP in a telephone interview from his office in the city of Arbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. “We can’t save a tree if we don’t save its roots, and a man without culture is a dead man.” In August 2014, as the Islamic State (IS) group charged towards Qaraqosh, once Iraq’s largest Christian city, Father Najeeb filled his car with rare manuscripts, 16th century books and irreplaceable records. He fled towards the relative safety of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. With two other friars from his Dominican order, he also moved the Oriental Manuscript Digitisation Centre (OMDC).