Charlotte Salomon

The compelling work of German-Jewish artist Charlotte Solomon as seen through the eyes of Jonathan Safran Foer, Bernice Eisenstein and Ernst van Alphen, who have made a personal selection from the artist's series of gouaches.

Berlin beginnings

Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943) grew up in Berlin and attended the city's art academy. She fled Germany at the age of twenty, shortly before The Night of the Broken Glass in 1938.

Solace in painting

Salomon went to live with her grandparents in southern France, who had already fled Nazi Germany. In 1940, after the outbreak of World War Two, her grandmother committed suicide. It was only then that Charlotte learned that her mother had also taken her own life in 1926. To help deal with these traumatic events and find an element of solace, Salomon turned to painting, and continued to do so until she was captured and deported to Auschwitz in October 1943, where she was murdered shortly after her arrival.

Life? or Theatre?

The result of Solomon's artistry is her life's work Life? or Theatre?, a series of gouaches intended as Gesamtkunstwerk. This multi-faceted and moving work of art is an extraordinary and unique document. The exhibition presents a selection from i>Life? or Theatre? made by American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, Canadian artist and writer Bernice Eisenstein and Ernst van Alphen, professor of literary studies at the University of Leiden.