On Friday, March 5, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., the Massillon Museum will simultaneously open two exhibitions by Nelly Toll of Philadelphia. A Holocaust survivor, the author and artist Nelly Toll will be present for the event.
In 1943, a sympathetic Christian family hid eight-year-old Nelly Zygmunt and her mother from the Nazis in Lwow, Poland. During their year of confinement, Nelly created brightly detailed watercolor dreams of her ideal world. Her optimistic paintings are an important counterpart to the cruelty depicted by most children of the Holocaust.
Prints of Nelly Zygmunt Toll’s childhood watercolors, “Imagining a Better World,” will be displayed in the Massillon Museum’s Studio M through April 4.
After World War Two, Nelly Toll pursued formal art training, earning a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and publishing three books on the topic of the Holocaust and related art.
“Nelly Toll: Now,” the artist’s recent paintings and collages will be exhibited in the Museum’s second-floor gallery through April 11. This will be the first exhibit of Toll’s 2009-2010 body of abstract and impressionistic artwork.
“The dual openings will enable visitors to experience Nelly Toll’s growth as an artist, from viewing prints of her childhood watercolors to the vivid paintings of her adulthood,” said Massillon Museum Curator Alexandra Nicholis, who has organized the two shows. “A common thread in both these bodies of work is an overall joyfulness and love of color.”
Toll will present a free public program at Kent Stark University Stark Campus on Friday, March 5, at 10:00 a.m. The exhibitions, programs, and Toll’s travel are funded by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of The Big Read.
For more information about the Nelly Toll exhibitions, call 330-833-4061 or visit www.massillonmuseum.org.
