Fordham-NYPL Lecture Series in Jewish Studies—Olga Rusinova, “From Form to Identity: Jewish-Brazilian Modernists in a Transnational Frame”

This talk focuses on Fayga Ostrower (1920–2001) and Anatol Naftali Wladyslaw (1913–2004), two Jewish-Brazilian modernists who engaged with questions of identity through non-figurative art in postwar Brazil. While their Jewish background was largely absent from official narratives of Brazilian modernism, their artistic choices reflected broader transnational debates on Jewish visual culture. By examining their connections to European and New York art scenes, the talk highlights how their work negotiated ethno-national belonging within multiple modernist contexts.

Olga Rusinova holds a PhD in art history and previously served as associate professor at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. In 2023, she relocated from wartime Russia to Campinas, Brazil, where she now teaches at the Ilum school of science, and volunteers at the Museum of Visual Arts (MAV-UNICAMP). Rusinova’s academic work in Russia focused on postwar modernist art in the USSR and Eastern Europe. She has published extensively for scholarly journals, museum catalogues, and exhibition essays. This background informs her research on Jewish-Brazilian modernist artists of Eastern European origin, and supports her ongoing work on how artistic identity takes shape across histories of exile, migration, and cultural translation. In spring 2026, Rusinova is a short-term Fordham-NYPL Fellow in Jewish studies.