Dr. Uta Lohmann
In July 2026, two new projects were launched at the Institute under the project leadership of Dr. Uta Lohmann: Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskala in Hamburg (exhibition and research project) and Moses Samuel Lowe and Benedict Heinrich Bendix: two visual artists of the (Jewish) Enlightenment.
Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskala in Hamburg (exhibition and research project)
The exhibition not only pays tribute to one of the most significant philosophers of the late German Enlightenment and the most prominent representative of the Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment). It also aims to explore and present to the public Mendelssohn’s diverse friendships and family ties to Hamburg. The objects brought together in the exhibition will narrate and illustrate this specific chapter of Hamburg’s history, placing it within the context of the Jewish Enlightenment movement and early Reform Judaism. Read more
Moses Samuel Lowe and Benedict Heinrich Bendix: two visual artists of the (Jewish) Enlightenment
This project is dedicated to reconstructing the biographies and cataloguing the works of two Jewish artists of the Berlin Enlightenment: Moses Samuel Lowe (also known as Johann Michael Siegfried Lowe, 1756–1831) and Benedict Heinrich Bendix (1768–1828). Lowe was a portrait and (miniature) painter, copperplate engraver and etcher. Bendix worked primarily as a draughtsman and copperplate engraver. Both received an academic education at the Berlin Academy of Arts, and both were members of the Jewish Enlightenment society ‘Gesellschaft der Beförderer des Edlen und Guten’ (חברת שוחרי הטוב והתושיה), whose artistic ambitions represented a novelty in German-Jewish history. Read more