Best remembered for her contribution to Jewish cultural life and for her unique ability to inspire those around her, Corinne Chochem had a distinct impact on Hebrew folk dance, both in her teaching and her two books, Palestine Dances (1941) and Jewish Holiday Dances (1948).

Katherine M. Cohen was a sculptor and artist dedicated to advocating for equality for women in the arts. Comfortably situated in the community of Philadelphia’s Jewish elite, Cohen created many commissions for the community reflecting Jewish themes and illustrated a Jewish children’s book. Cohen made a speech at the Chicago World’s Fair advocating for the support of artists, and specifically female artists.

Lucille Corcos was celebrated as one of the foremost “modern primitivist” painters in America, creating revealing composite urban scenes. Corcos was widely praised for her lack of self-consciousness and complete freedom of expression, and she exhibited works throughout the United States and Europe.

Sonia Delaunay was known for her vivid use of color and her bold, abstract patterns, breaking down traditional distinctions between the fine and applied arts as an artist, designer, and printmaker. She designed costumes for operas and ballets around Europe and created her own fashion design company. Deluanay was the first female artist to have a retrospective show of her work at the Louvre in 1964.

Friedl Dicker was an artist and educator who studied at the Bauhaus school then led art classes at Terezin.  In the ghetto, Dicker taught drawing to hundreds of children, designed sets and costumes for children’s performances, and made an exhibition of children’s drawings in a basement. She also created her own sketches, many of which were discovered in the 1980s.

Stella Drabkin was a talented painter and mosaicist who innovated new methods of printmaking. She is known for her experiments with multitype, a variation on monotype printing with layers of texture and color, creating mosaic panels on biblical themes, and creating prints with poems. Following her death, in 1972 the Art Alliance established the Stella Drabkin Memorial Award Fund in her honor. 

Celia Dropkin’s sexually explicit poetry expanded possibilities for the depiction of relationships between men and women in modern Yiddish poetry. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, her poems appeared in avant-garde Yiddish literary publications. Infused with erotic energy, the themes of Dropkin’s poetry – sex, love, and death – shocked her contemporaries.

Mary Frank was a sculptor and painter inspired by dance, photography, and the moving body. Born in London, Frank immigrated to the United States in the 1940s and danced with Martha Graham and studied art at the American Art School in New York. Frank imparts a sense of the timelessness and her work, and her sculptures have been described as sensual, sublime, poetic and profoundly moving, placing her among the foremost figurative artists of our time. 

Helen Frankenthaler pioneered a new style of abstract expressionist painting that earned her the respect of the art world and inspired other artists. Her constant high achievement ranks her as one of the most important contributors to the history of postwar American painting.  Frankenthaler’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world.

Rose Kohler was a multitalented woman who was known as an accomplished painter and sculptor. She was a teacher in, and later the chair of, the National Council of Jewish Women’s religious schools in Cincinnati, Ohio, and wrote many articles on art and religion.

Broncia Koller-Pinell was a successful artist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and a contemporary of Josef Hoffmann, Kolo Moser, and Gustav Klimpt in Vienna. As a Jew and a woman creating art in Christian male-dominated spaces, Koller-Pinell remained true to herself and created beautiful artwork in spite of the adversities she faced.