Monmouth University in West Long Branch has signed an agreement to collaborate with a nonprofit that maintains the legacy of a famed artist from the historical Jewish enclave of Roosevelt.

The Jacob Landau Institute in Roosevelt displays the work of Landau, a world-renowned painter and lithographer who was born in Philadelphia in 1917 and moved to Roosevelt, a town that was home to many other Jewish artists and writers, in 1955; he died in 2001 at 85 and is buried in the Roosevelt Cemetery.

The collaboration will consist of open communication and interaction between MU and the institute’s staff, artists, and educators, according to university president Paul G. Gaffney II.

The agreement, which began to take shape last year, was signed on Sept. 29 and will remain in effect for a five-year period, according to Dr. Saliba Sarsar, associate vice president for academic programs and initiatives at MU, a member of the institute board, and a onetime resident of Roosevelt.

“This collaboration is something special, and it will benefit the university and the institute in a very significant way,” said Sarsar. “The spirit of creativity still resides at Jacob Landau’s studio, and now our students will have a chance to learn about his vision and impact on art and society.”

Sarsar met Landau in the early 1980s, and the two developed a relationship that focused on art as a means of promoting education and world peace. “I never took formal courses with Jacob, but every conversation I had with him was a profound lesson for me in art, creativity, and humanity,” Sarsar said.

In 1996, the university awarded Landau an honorary doctorate of fine arts.

“As a young man, he was enraptured by the world of appearances and wanted to capture it all,” Sarsar recalled. “Everything was visually exciting to him. He also fell in love with knowledge for its own sake and sought to share it with others.”

Landau, who grew up during the Great Depression, understood the plight of ordinary people and their nobility in the face of adversity. “For Jacob, the artist’s role was essential in advancing social progress,” Sarsar said. “He once wrote that the artist is a ‘hero, a heaven-stormer who changes the way people think and whose whole life is a paradigmatic tale of self-conquest.’”

After serving as an editor and photographer in Europe during World War II, Landau was greatly affected by the atrocities of the Holocaust. That experience, combined with the emergence of the Cold War during the 1960s, changed Landau’s definition of the artist; the artist as hero was replaced by the artist as witness, said Sarsar.

The epitaph on Landau’s tombstone speaks volumes, he added.

“It says, ‘Without art, we are an endangered and endangering species,’” said Sarsar. “Now we have a great opportunity to thank him for his insight.”

Gaffney said the collaboration has four major goals: to promote creativity and enhance the artistic and educational experiences for MU’s faculty and student body; to create integrative study for the university’s faculty and students through comprehensive, hands-on experiences in a professional setting, including the Landau dome studio; to extend the reach of the institute and the university in the community; and to contribute to the preservation of the artwork and legacies of Landau and other Roosevelt artists.

The agreement also calls for the formation of a Collaboration Advisory Committee composed of six members, drawn in equal numbers from the university and the institute; the committee will oversee all aspects of the working relationship between the two groups and will make recommendations regarding ways to enhance services.

The agreement also will enable MU students to become interns at the institute. The university will host a series of lectures on and exhibits of the work of Landau and other Roosevelt artists and will organize field trips to the institute. In addition, the institute staff will provide classes, lectures, and mentoring services to the MU community.

A retrospective of Landau’s work is scheduled to take place on the university campus in 2007.