With Brush in Hand: How Ursula Sternberg Viewed the World

Much of an archivist’s professional life is spent in a world of beige paper and a black ink: a wonderful world in which facts, feelings, and stories emerge. In the case of artist Ursula Sternberg-Hertz, however, her facts, feelings, and stories burst from the pages as a visual extravaganza in vibrant colors. Instead of just words, paintings, drawings, sketches, and visual diaries join in the documentation of a vivid life, filled with family, war, survival, love, marriage, motherhood, friendship, and so much art. 

See the world of Ursula through her eyes and experience her childhood in Germany, fleeing to Holland and Belgium to escape the Nazis; and her adulthood as she moved from England to settle in Chestnut Hill, all the while creating art and communities of artists. Although she lived in the Philadelphia area, she seemed to belong to Europe and her papers provide a window into a world that covered continents. Join Holly Mengel, Head of Archives and Manuscripts Processing, to glimpse just a tiny portion of her artwork and the way she viewed the world in which she lived.

About the speaker

Holly Mengel is Head of Archives and Manuscripts Processing in the Kislak Center and has worked at Kislak since 2013. She earned a BA in history from Dickinson College and an MLIS with a concentration in Archives from the University of Pittsburgh. She has been processing collections for over twenty years, in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Princeton, and Philadelphia.