PGSCA Bernard Zakheim
Bernard Zakheim, Polish American Artist of California By Robert S. Sherins, MD PGSCA BULLETIN, 2014 Bernard Zakheim, born in 1896 in Warsaw, Poland, became a greatly admired artist in California. Among his most acknowledged works were the 14 frescoes created at the University of California, San Francisco, 1936-1939, in which he depicted the transition of medical practices in California from the earlier medieval and mythical methods that evolved into the modern scientifically-based practices of healthcare at UCSF. This year is the celebration of that excellence in education and standards of medicine as UCSF acknowledges its Sesquicentennial (1864-2014). However, Zakheim’s artworks included more than 10,000 paintings and sculptures depicting his life experiences in Poland and America, during which he was traumatized by the prevailing anti-Semitism, loss of 300 members of his family in the Holocaust, and rejection by his family because of his pursuit of art instead of continuing the 10- generational ancestral tradition as a rabbi. The author, Robert S. Sherins, MD, alumnus of UCSF, School of Medicine, Class of 1963, has published a thesis on the subject of Bernard Zakheim’s artwork and biography, emphasizing the famous frescoes created at UCSF in 1936-1939 that were painted on-site in Cole and Toland Halls. The Zakheim’ art projects were sponsored by SERA, the California “State Emergency Relief Administration.” The manuscript contains 824 illustrated pages in 8-volumes, and a bibliography. This work will be archived at UCSF, Kalmanovitz Library, Special Collections and Archives and made freely available to the public. Copies of the thesis also are archived at the California State History Library in Sacramento, California; UCLA Chancellor’s Archives and the UCLA Biomedical Library; and the Huntington Library, Rare Book Collections, in San Marino, California.
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