Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn, 1856

Born in Hanau, Germany, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim is often regarded as the first modern Jewish painter. Unlike some of his contemporaries he did not convert to Christianity and did not hesitate to grapple with the subject of modern Jewish identity in his art.  A prodigy who trained at the Munich Academy at a young age, his work embraces his own Jewish identity and that of his people. It fully engages the experiences of German Jews who entered comfortable middle-class life while maintaining their traditions. His work overturned stereotypes of Jewish life held by most non-Jews and many enlightened Jews of his age. Yet by virtue of his own distance from the subject and his great talent, his paintings transcend the particulars. Oppenheim’s success was unique: most Jewish artists found that despite the growth of an art-consuming middle class of Jews, if they were confined to a Jewish market by genre or subject, they could not earn a livelihood as artists. Oppenheim became the first Jewish member of the Frankfurt Museum Society in 1825. Especially in the early part of his career, he painted religious subjects and portraits, including of the Rothschild family and Heinrich Heine.