UB artist reclaims family’s legacy through printmaking, exhibitions

In 2016, artist Noah Breuer embarked on a pivotal research trip to the Czech Republic to discover any scraps or pieces he could find of his family’s pre-war business.

Before being confiscated by Nazi officials in 1939, Carl Breuer and Sons (CB&S), a textile factory that had operated in the former Czechoslovakia since 1897, was a significant producer of printed decorative fabrics — producing 660,000 meters of fabric per year before the war. Once Nazi-approved owners took it over from the Breuers, who were Jewish, the factory that once produced colorful handkerchiefs and domestic linens was repurposed to produce items such as military uniform components and even the Star of David badges Jews were forced to wear for identification. In addition to this cruel twist of fate, many members of the Breuer family were killed in the Holocaust, and those who survived only did so by fleeing to America with few, if any, belongings.

“With the loss of their livelihood and then their very lives, most remnants of their work also disappeared,” Breuer, assistant professor of art, said about his family’s history.

But thanks to his findings during that fortuitous 2016 trip, Breuer’s family’s legacy is making a triumphant return to the Czech Republic through Breuer’s new exhibition, “Noah Breuer: Return,” on view at the Český Krumlov Synagogue June 25 through Sept. 14.

Breuer used the original archival materials he unearthed, which consisted of CB&S printed textiles, swatches, business records and correspondence, and then, through print-based media, reinterpreted the visual language of his family’s lost business while acknowledging its tragic end.

“Much of my research was informed by the work and knowledge of my father, Robert Breuer, which helped to elucidate invaluable details of Breuer family history,” he explains.

Breuer has taken an expansive approach in responding to his research through art making. He has made screenprints and lithographs, as well as engraved wood installations and collaborative art pieces. His practice often combines traditional techniques with modern tools, such as laser cutters and digital printers.

Using a combination of linen, digital media, paint and screens, Breuer honors the family history and contributions to popular material culture of the period. He deliberately weaves the color yellow throughout his work — both as a tribute and a quiet act of defiance — referencing the same hue used in the Stars of David his family members were once forced to wear.

“The shroud of the Holocaust looms large over this work, but I want these pieces to also be a celebration of the visual legacy of the business … of their hard work,” Breuer says.

He also periodically invites public participation through interactive workshops held alongside his exhibitions. Visitors create wax rubbings from engraved CB&S-inspired designs, contributing to a collective act of artistic reclamation. These workshops challenge traditional ideas of artistic ownership and breathe new life into the historical materials.

Breuer, without knowing the entirety of his family’s legacy and his heritage, became interested in printmaking while in high school. He grew up in Berkeley, Calif., and holds a BFA in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design, an MFA in visual art from Columbia University, and a graduate research certificate in traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking and papermaking from Kyoto Seika University.

His artist books have been published by the San Francisco Center for the Book and Small Editions in Brooklyn, New York, and his work is in the permanent collections of the New York Public Library and the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Breuer has received numerous fellowships, awards and residencies, including the Community Studio Fellowship from Dieu Donné in Brooklyn and the California Society of Printmakers Residency at The W.O.R.K.S. Printshop in Vallejo.

“I’ve been studying and thinking of printmaking for 25 years,” Breuer says. “Maybe it’s some kind of cosmic fate that I’m an artist and printmaker.”

“Return” features 16 large, screen-printed compositions on linen and felt — each measuring approximately 4 feet by 6 feet — that will be on display at the Český Krumlov Synagogue.  

Breuer has a second Czech exhibit, “Návrat,” that will be on view from Sept. 26 to Nov. 16 at the Municipal Muzeum in Breuer’s ancestorial home of Dvůr Králové nad labem.  

“While working on this reclamation project, I broadened my knowledge of craft media to include sculptural glass, mold-making, paper-casting, woodworking and textile dyes, and I created installations and participatory workshops,”

For both exhibitions, Breuer utilized the support of UB’s Experiential Learning Network, as well as a $10,000 grant from SUNY’s Research and Creative Activities for Undergraduates Program, to help create the large-scale projects.

“I wanted the exhibition at the Český Krumlov Synagogue to feel like a cohesive, site-specific installation, so I have pushed myself to create an entirely new body of work for this show,” Breuer says. “I would not have been able to pull that off without the help of my former student, Gardner Astalos (BFA ’26), who has been working with me as a paid production assistant on all facets of this project since February.”  Breuer also collaborated with the wallpaper-printing studio Red Disk in North Buffalo to screenprint his repeating pattern designs onto the 80 linear yards of linen fabric needed to create his installation.

Breuer’s 2023 exhibition “Reclamation” at the National Czech and Slovak Museum & Library, a Smithsonian affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was accompanied by a monograph that includes more details about Breuer’s family history and how he transformed his research into his art. The monograph highlights one striking piece, “Shattered,” that repurposes original CB&S handkerchief designs as a composition made of semi-opaque glass, screen-printed imagery, shattered and fused onto a fiery red-orange base to evoke Kristallnacht — the Nazi pogrom (violent attack) on Nov. 10, 1938.

“That same day, my grandparents received U.S. visas in Prague, narrowly escaping the horrors that soon engulfed Europe,” Breuer notes.

Through “Return,” Breuer not only honors the legacy of CB&S, but also reframes its designs within the context of survival, loss and creativity.

For Breuer, what began as a search for family history has become a lesson in how art can preserve, question and reclaim one’s history. In reviving the lost designs of CB&S through his own artistic voice, he ensures that their beauty, meaning and message will endure.