LOS ANGELES, CA—The Skirball Cultural Center unveils two new exhibitions opening May 1, 2025: Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity, a deep dive into the six-decade career of legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby (1917-1994) and Away in the Catskills: Summers, Sour Cream and Dirty Dancing, featuring artist Marisa J. Futernick’s look at leisure, class, and lives of women during mid-century America. 

Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity
May 1, 2025—March 1, 2026

Delve into the six-decade career of legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby (1917–1994) with the Skirball Cultural Center’s presentation of Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity, opening May 1, 2025. 

Over the course of his extraordinary career, Jack Kirby created some of the most enduring characters and storylines in the history of American comics. Captain America. The Fantastic Four. The Avengers. OMAC. The X-Men. The Black Panther. Mister Miracle. The Incredible Hulk. The New Gods. These iconic superheroes are among the best-known of the many characters first brought to life by Kirby. Throughout his storied career, he expanded the emotional and intellectual horizons of the comic book medium, championed diversity, and helped establish the visual vocabulary of modern popular culture.

Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity traces his experiences as a first-generation Jewish American born to immigrant parents in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a soldier who fought in World War II, and a successful commercial artist who worked in marginalized creative industries. Kirby was a mentor to a generation of younger comic creators, a resident of New York and Los Angeles, and a proud family man whose Jewish faith remained important throughout his life. The exhibition goes beyond the page, featuring original comic illustrations alongside Kirby’s other works—many on view for the first time—considering his fine art and commercial art as equally significant.

Today, Kirby remains a pivotal figure in American popular culture, and his influence in the worlds of comics, film, animation, graphic design, and pop art is evident more than thirty years after his passing. 

“Jack Kirby created heroes and reimagined the art of illustration in ways that continue to shape popular culture. His lived experience as the child of immigrant parents shaped the characters that resonated broadly across generations and communities,” said Jessie Kornberg, President and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center. “As an institution that celebrates the immigrant identity and history of Jewish Americans we look forward to sharing Kirby’s life and art with our visitors.”

Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity was co-curated by independent curators Patrick A. Reed and Ben Saunders. The organizing curator is Skirball Museum Deputy Director Michele Urton.

Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity and its related educational programs are made possible by generous support from Stephanie and Harold Bronson, and Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary.

Away in the Catskills: Summers, Sour Cream, and Dirty Dancing by Marisa J. Futernick
May 1—August 31, 2025

Pack your bags and join artist Marisa J. Futernick as she sifts through inherited and imagined memories of family vacations in the Catskill Mountains of New York with the Skirball Cultural Center’s new exhibition Away in the Catskills: Summers, Sour Cream, and Dirty Dancing, opening May 1.

Colloquially known as the “Borscht Belt,” this region catered to working- and middle-class American Jewish families who, along with other minority groups, were excluded from many leisure spaces. The Catskills offered vacationers a newfound break from wage labor and some forms of domestic labor, as well as a safe and welcoming place to enjoy family time. 

“A Jewish contemporary artist sharing a lesser-known corner of Jewish American cultural history: this is a fabulous way to kick off Jewish American Heritage Month and the summer season,” said Jessie Kornberg, President and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center.

The exhibition features:

• A series of fifteen prints drawn from vintage color slides of the artist's maternal family on vacation in the Catskills during the 1960s, capturing the pleasure and freedom of the Catskills and asking questions about leisure, class, and the lives of women in the U.S. at midcentury (1945-1968)
• An installation created from the artist’s family mementos with an accompanying zine, using objects to connect to what leisure looked and felt like for Jewish vacationers.
• A new video artwork with several hundred still photographs and voiceover narration by the artist. In this video work, Futernick juxtaposes her mother’s and grandmother’s strong feelings of Jewish community—bolstered by their experiences in the Catskills—with her own relative lack thereof, provoking a conversation about assimilation and loss. 

Away in the Catskills: Summers, Sour Cream, and Dirty Dancing by Marisa J. Futernick was curated by Skirball Cultural Center Chief Curator Cate Thurston.

The Skirball Cultural Center’s current exhibition Diane von Furstenberg: Woman Before Fashion remains on view until August 31, 2025. The opening of the exhibition coincided with the 50th anniversary of the fashion designer’s iconic wrap dress. Diane von Furstenberg: Woman Before Fashion includes a selection of over sixty pieces drawn from the DVF archives along with ephemera, fabric swatches, media pieces, and information on her philanthropic work.

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Ticketing for the Skirball’s Spring Exhibitions
Tickets for the new spring exhibitions go on sale Thursday, April 3, at 10:00 am. Admission to Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity and Away in the Catskills: Summers, Sour Cream, and Dirty Dancing by Marisa J. Futernick: $18 General; $13 Seniors, Full-Time Students, and Children. Exhibitions are always free to Skirball Members and Children under 2.

About the Skirball

The Skirball Cultural Center is a place of meeting guided by the Jewish tradition of welcoming the stranger and inspired by the American democratic ideals of freedom and equality. We welcome people of all communities and generations to participate in cultural experiences that celebrate discovery and hope, foster human connections, and call upon us to help build a more just society.

Visiting the Skirball

The Skirball is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049. Museum hours: Tuesday–Friday, 12:00–5:00 pm; Saturday–Sunday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm; closed Mondays and holidays. Reservations are recommended for General Admission and the permanent exhibition Noah's Ark at the Skirball, which requires timed entry and is ticketed separately. For general information, the public may call (310) 440-4500 or visit skirball.org.