Life or Theatre

I saw the pictures reproduced in this book in a special exhibition at the 'Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum' in Jerusalem. I was in the company of a professional artist who was astounded by the insightfulness, intelligence and even humor of Salomon's work. She tells a harrowing and tragic family story in this work. This is what Wikipedia has to say about her work. "This series of gouaches is an extraordinary and unique document. In great detail it tells the story of Charlotte's family and friends, her own internal life, the political background, and her obsessive love affair. Charlotte Salomon had an artistic training and her household was highly cultured. The way she tells this story is full of tragedy, but the telling also reveals Charlotte's sly humour and wit. The series starts out with highly detailed and multi-layered images of the life and relationship between her mother and father. As the story unfolds the style gets broader and more expressionistic. The last 'chapters' are almost violent in their expression, as if Charlotte is aware of her impending fate and can hardly wait to write and paint the details of her story as the Gestapo close in on her life. A large part of Life? or Theater? is about her obsession with 'Amadeus Daberlohn', a voice teacher she met through her stepmother 'Paulinka Bimbam' (Charlotte gives all her characters humorous, often punning, pseudonyms). These sections are honest and compelling accounts of her passionate relationship with Alfred Wolfson - the one person who took her artistic work seriously. It is not possible to know if Charlotte's version of her relationship with Wolfson corresponds with reality, but he was undoubtedly her first love." The work also has indications for original scored music. And there are captions with each of the drawings make it into a kind of fascinating cartoon -like narrative. Salomon and her husband were murdered by the Nazis. We cannot know the work she might have done had it been given her to live.

It's a journey into time... I have bought after seeing the exhibition of Charlotte works in London. The book, which is a collection of her paintings, takes the visitor through her animated 'play' into her life, the destruction withing her and around her. But the beauty prevails.