Anne Baruch makes it clear that the vision of her late husband Jacques lives on at Chicago`s Jacques Baruch Gallery, 40 E. Delaware Pl. The couple opened the gallery in 1967. Theirs was a love story that also encompassed the world of Eastern European art. Baruch, who has received numerous honors for her work, recently received a medal from the Czech Ministry of Culture for her support of Czech artists. Baruch talked with writer Abigail Foerstner about the dream that became the gallery and how she managed to continue after her husband`s death in 1986.
I grew up in Chicago on what is known as the West Side. At the time, it was a great big Jewish community that was filled with people of every age, every background. It was really a very European community in the sense that you had very wealthy people living right next door to very poor people.
It was during the Depression and it was a very difficult time. But there was a blending where everybody came together and where everybody helped each other. People would sit on their porches in the evening and there was just a warmth that you grew up with.
My mother always loved to take us down to the museums. It didn`t cost anything and we would walk 25 blocks to get there. But we did it and it opened your eyes and opened your mind. That was probably the most influential part of my life because I think once you are exposed to the arts, you never lose that, you never move away from it. It becomes a passion.
My husband was a great influence on my life. Jacques was a survivor. He came here in 1946 on one of the first liberty ships from Europe. Jacques was living in Germany and working first for the British army, then the American army, translating. And one day he went into one of the offices and they suggested that he put his name in to come to the United States.
He had no place else to go because he had fought against the Russians as well as against the Nazis and he had had many horrible experiences and he knew he couldn`t go back to Poland. He was born in Warsaw but there was nobody left.
I met him in a little army surplus store in Chicago. The man who owned it was acquainted with my brother-in-law. He said, ”You know, there`s a man that I want you to meet. I think you`ll like him.”
And then there was another group of friends that I had and one of them said to me, ”You know, I met this young man. I think you should meet him.”
Then there was another group and it turned out all three groups were talking about the same man, Jacques.
When we met, it was love at first sight. We were married two years later because neither one of us had a dime. Jacques was 27 and I`m not going to mention my age. I was out of school and working at that time. He was an architect. He was also a trained artist. He worked with Harry Weese here. He worked with (Ludwig) Mies van der Rohe.
It was in 1967 when he decided he would open a gallery. I was the assistant to the owner of a brokerage firm at the time, a troubleshooter. We opened the gallery as partners.
There must have been only 9 or 10 galleries in Chicago then and he started going into the different galleries to find out what was going on. There wasn`t one gallery out of the lot he went into where he found a soul besides the owner.
The big decision was what would we show. Jacques felt that there was a lot going on in Eastern Europe that was unknown here. He came from a very cultured, aristocratic family in Warsaw. He was extremely well educated. His world was filled with art and music. And he felt he would like to bring something of his past to the gallery.
Well he applied for a visa and was given permission to go back to Poland. I didn`t go with him because it was really his journey. And when he went back there, he couldn`t find a single person (he knew) except his professor of coloring at the university; he was a big help in showing Jacques what was going on there.
That was when Poland was still very closed up. It was not easy to find people. We got things and showed them because you had to start somewhere. We got figurative work and nudes. It wasn`t exactly what he wanted, but that was all right, he would be able to go back.
We started to think about what direction we wanted to go and we thought, well next we should go to Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia to seek out addditional artists. And when we went to Czechoslovakia that, of course, became the focal point of our world.
It was a period (in Czechoslovakia) where everything was to be seen. There wasn`t an inch where you couldn`t find something fantastic in paintings and sculpture and it was just the most unique, exciting work. It was overwhelming to see what was happening to artists who were not being included in what was called the mainstream and to see the development of art that was so rich.
We spent about five, six weeks there, in the period of the Prague Spring. We met dealers from New York. We met dealers from different countries. We met artists there whom we stayed in touch with for years. There was a feeling for every single person who was there. It was one of the richest times of anyone`s life and I always describe it as falling in love. It had that heightened quality where your senses are so alert. You could see colors more vividly. Everything you`d pass, you`d feel more intensely.
We had to leave a day early. Our reservations were changed by the government. We didn`t know what was going on but they changed our
reservations. They said a flight had been cancelled and there were no flights leaving on the day we were supposed to leave. It turned out to be five hours before the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia.
Some artists took us to the airport when we left Czechoslovakia. I had arms full of flowers and I brought them to the hotel and they gave me vases. It was an incredible feeling when I knew I would have to leave those flowers. We knew whatever we had experienced before was completely over.
We went back the next year and we couldn`t find a phone book. If we hadn`t been there the year before, we would not have been able to find a single soul. So we felt that it was destined to be. We found our way. We decided to work there regardless.
In 1970, we moved the gallery to 900 N. Michigan Ave. and while we were working on the place, my husband had a massive heart attack. When he came out of the hospital, he was told he couldn`t travel. So I started traveling on my own because there was no other way. We really didn`t want to give up the gallery. We had started something that we felt was worthwhile, important.
I wasn`t sure how I was going to manage all of it, not knowing languages. Here I am, a little Chicago girl without any language knowledge and I went to Eastern Europe on my own. I had a six-week tour of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia.
When I was in Czechoslovakia, in the airport, I heard a language I understood. But I couldn`t figure out what it was. And when one of the artists came to pick me up I said, ”Why do I understand the language?” He knew I understood some Yiddish and he said, ”Oh, Anne, you`re listening to German. Don`t you know Yiddish is about 90 per cent German?” There were many people there who spoke German as a second language. So, I was able to struggle through.
I became very, very close to the artists. It was like having this huge family.
We were at 900 N. Michigan for about 14 years. That particular atmosphere made people feel they were in a surrounding they didn`t care to leave. So many people carry that gallery with them. The doors to our gallery were 17th Century Spanish. There were 13th Century stained glass windows. There were incredible artifacts throughout the building. Then we were notified like everybody else was that we had three months to move from the buidling. They were going to tear it down.
The building we`re in now had just opened then. All of this was open space. Jacques drew up his floor plans and we rented an apartment in the building and we moved here. We can hang 60 works on the walls here and you can walk comfortably through every space without feeling oppressed by too much work. That`s Jacques` design. As an architect, he wanted to create not just space. He wanted to create warmth. Art should be connected with warmth.
People come in and have a cup of coffee, sit and go through the books, listen to music, look at the art. In the old place, we had a huge kitchen and we`d cook soup. On Saturdays, you`d find 10 or 12 people sitting at the table eating soup.
That was the kind of community I grew up in. You were always invited into somebody`s house. There was always food. The importance of food was part of the essence of life. And I still have that feeling.
After losing Jacques, there was no question about carrying on. If something had happened to me first, he would have continued. This is a life`s work.
We each had our work in the gallery but we absorbed so much more. You may never use it but it`s sitting there in your head. Jacques always did the designs and the installations for exhibits. As an architect, he had a feeling for it, an innate sense for just taking a look around and knowing just what to do with the work.
That was one of the most frightening parts of continuing on with the gallery. You can hurt an artist by poor installation, a show can be ruined. The first exhibition after I lost Jacques was a turn-of-the-century show. I agonized over it. It took me about three weeks to design it because I felt I just couldn`t do it. It was impossible.
But, finally, it clicked and I put it together and it came out very well. It was like pulling the Yiddish from the past in Eastern Europe. We absorb so much more than we think. If we share experiences we learn. I had learned design from Jacques.
People need visual art and that was a very strong determination that we also made. We were going to stimulate the imagination, stimulate the interest in something else besides what you see all the time.
If the cave man started making music and drawing, there has to be something within the human that needs art, visual art, as much as we need music. I feel the visual arts are a requirement to each human being.
If somebody delivers groceries or something to the gallery, and they hesitate, I always say, ”Would you like to look through?” You find out they had some courses at the Art Institute once. They come back.
