The Monastery of Pedralbes to exhibit 237 gouaches by Charlotte Salomon
This Jewish artist was deported and exterminated in Auschwitz at the age of 26.
Charlotte Salomon (Berlin, 1917 - Auschwitz, 1943) took refuge in art as a form of catharsis and rescue. Her life was marked by extreme suffering and at the age of 26 she was deported and exterminated in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Her legacy is Life of Theatre?, a work of total art where painting, theatre, literature and music all come together with a total of 782 gouaches, accompanied by comments, dialogues and descriptions. On October 17, the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes will inaugurate an exhibition with 237 of these gouaches curated by Ricard Bru, Doctor in Art History and Professor of the Department of Art and Musicology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, in collaboration with the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam.
Through her paintings and comments, Salomon described her life in order to find herself, overcome the past and try to understand the present in the period shortly before the Holocaust. The exhibition organizers describe it as, "a dramatized and structured autobiography as if it were a play or a musical comedy divided into three acts (prologue, main act and epilogue) in which the names of the protagonists are altered slightly… and with fictitious elements that transform the life experience of the artist in a dramatic, cathartic and curatorial story". The visitor will find many references to operas, melodies and popular songs in the gouaches, with a formal conception that is inspired by the world of cinema.
The exhibition can be seen until 17 February 2019. Additional information is available at the following link.