057- Catalyst Presents: The Artist is Present- Michael Hafftka

Catalyst: A Creative Industries Podcast

“The Artist is Present” is a special series which is being hosted under the Catalyst: A Creative Industries Podcast of the Center for Creative and Cultural Industries at Chapman University. “The Artis is Present” was developed under the direction of the Phyllis and Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art’s Director, Fiona Shen, and Registrar, Jessica Bocinski, so that a wider audience would have the opportunity to hear directly from the artists in the Escalette Collection at the University. This second episode of this series features Michael Hafftka an American figurative expressionist painter living in New York City. His work is represented in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the New York Public Library. The works by Hafftka included in the Escalette Collection of Art are informed by his experience as the son of Holocaust survivors. Hafftka describes this series as a way to express his interest in the human condition while paying homage to Jewish tradition.