Reuven Rubin, Visiting Artist Lecture 1953

In this intimate lecture, Rubin speaks about his experiences growing up in an isolated Romanian Jewish community and how this has informed his artistic practice. Rubin goes into specific biographical detail, describing the many travels throughout his life that he has embarked on ranging from Paris and New York to London and Israel/Palestine, and how those travels have continued to inform his paintings and drawings. Rubin stresses how traveling taught him about the importance of differentiating between what it means to look and what it means to see as an artist, and tells the students to also develop autodidactic curiosities as this will serve their artistic practice. Rubin then shares about his current experiences living and working in Israel and Palestine, speaking about the burgeoning art community that is based there, the important exhibitions that are held there, and the famous artists who have visited, such as Marc Chagall. For Rubin, one of the most important things that makes this region so rich for him as an artist is the many immigrants who have now made their home there, including communities from central Europe such as Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.