Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre?

Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre?

Painting For Her Life
Charlotte Salomonâ€™s artistic feat under the Third Reich

When German artist Charlotte Salomon (1917â€“1943) handed her gouache series Life? or Theater? over to a friend, she beseeched him to â€œtake good care of it, it is my entire life.â€ A few months later, the five-months pregnant Charlotte was picked up by a Gestapo truck, deported to Drancy, and then on to Auschwitz, where she died upon arrival at the age 26.

Trauma haunts many of the pages, but there is defiance, too. Born of a family plagued by depression, the work Salomon left behind is, in a very real sense, her piÃ¨ce de rÃ©sistance â€“ in her own words, â€œsomething wildly eccentric.â€ A cycle of nearly 1,300 autobiographical gouaches, it combines creative force with pioneering personal narrative into one shattering document of self-expression.

Divided into three sections, the gouaches unveil a vivid self-portrait spanning across all facets of Charlotte's existence: from a complicated family life, marked by the suicides of nearly all female relatives; growing up in Berlin; her close relation to singing teacher Alfred Wolfsohn; the rise of the Nazis; to her exile to France in 1939. Throughout, the artist challenges these destructive forces by deploying playful pseudonyms and fantastical elements alongside emotional candor, remarkable observation, and a meticulous visual memory. Her film strip-like sequences are interspersed not only with words but also musical suggestions, making Life? or Theater? the storybook for a whole musical, years before the heyday of that genre.

Without comparison, the gouaches are a triumph of personal truth and individual expression. Published here with a selection of the 450 most important pieces, Life? Or Theatre? is an unrivaled opus magnum from a great and ambitious artist, dark with her early death, but luminous with her precision, her lyricism, and her courage.
Country USA
Brand Taschen
Manufacturer TASCHEN
Binding Paperback
UnitCount 1
EANs 9783836570770
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Taschen
Manufacturer	TASCHEN
Binding	Paperback
UnitCount	1
EANs	9783836570770
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre?

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