A Celebration of Religious and Racial Harmony Through Art

This Event is a Celebration of and acknowledgement of the Life and Art of Isaac Witkin, abstract sculptor and one-time assistant to the British master sculptor, Sir Henry Moore, whose famous sculpture has graced the campus of S.U.N.Y. Purchase for over 40 years.  It is also an event for the awareness of the injustices of global Apartheid and both racial and religious intolerance, and the need for art to heal and bridge the gap between all peoples of the world.

This has been organized by one of the Alumni from the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, who has had to undergo extreme obstacles both financially and personally in order to present this work of power and beauty to the public, the faculty and students of this Arts University. The purpose of this event is twofold:

1. To present the life and valuable contribution of an important artist to the language of 20th and 21st Century Art, to the New Generation of Visual and Performing artists, students and faculty,  as well as to the aesthetically conscious public.

                            And

2. To stress the necessity of human expression through the Arts to Heal, Bring Joy, Meaning, and Purpose to Human Existence, and to Bridge the Differences while Celebrating the core of Mankinds' Common Bond.

             The Presenter of this event, gratefully acknowledges the cooperation of the Office of External Affairs' Institutional Advancement, Ms. Jeannine Starr, and her assistant, Ms. Raysil Galan. 

During the scheduled hour,  Three Artists, all of whom had a meaningful connection with Isaac, [the sculptor whose work will be featured on this day],  are also educators, each, in very different capacities and venues.

Revelatory, sometimes deeply personal footage of colleagues and close family will be shown-

The presenting alumna remembers many a happy hour spent curled up inside the Henry Moore sculpture, more than twenty years ago, studying the 19th Century Romantic poets and vowing to some day bring Henry Moore's disciple, her late Father's work, full circle, back to her alma mater.

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

William Butler Yeats.