Erna Rosenstein

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Tomb of Erna Rosenstein and Artur Sandauer in the military cemetery in Warsaw

Erna Rosenstein (born May 17, 1913 in Lemberg (then Austria-Hungary ), † November 10, 2004 in Warsaw ) was a Polish surrealist painter and poet.

Life

Rosenstein was born the daughter of an Austro-Hungarian judge and grew up in an assimilated Jewish family. In 1918 the family moved to Kraków.

She studied at the Vienna Women's Academy from 1932 to 1934, and from 1934 to 1936 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow with Wojciech Weiss . In Vienna she joined a Marxist youth organization and took part in the February uprising .

During her academic years she came into contact with the student group "Grupa Krakowska". 1937–1938 while studying in Paris, she became acquainted with Surrealism at the great Paris Surrealist Exhibition in 1937.

During the Second World War she stayed with her parents in Lviv, first under Soviet rule, from July 1941 under German occupation. She came to the Lviv ghetto as a Jew . In 1942 she managed to escape and since then she has lived in hiding under various aliases, first with her parents in Warsaw , and from 1944 in Czestochowa .

After the war she came to Krakow. As a staunch socialist, she was at first delighted with the new social order, but was soon exposed as a "formalist" by the delegates 'assembly of the Polish Artists' Union in June 1949.

She co-founded the reborn Kraków group with Tadeusz Kantor , Maria Jarema and Jonasz Stern . In 1949 she married the literary critic Artur Sandauer , and in 1950 she gave birth to her son Adam Sandauer, a future human rights activist.

Until 1954, because of the imposed socialist realism , she was unable to exhibit her works.

Encouraged by her husband Artur Sandauer, she began to write poetry and short plays. Because of the difficulties with the censorship, her first volume of poetry "Die Spur" was not published until 1972.

In 1996 a selection of her poetry (155 poems) was published by Gollenstein Verlag.

After the fall of Socialist Realism around 1956, Erna Rosenstein was able to take part in exhibitions.

Her painting was influenced by the influences of surrealism and abstract art. Motifs from war and persecution often appeared.

She joined the II Krakow Group founded in 1955. The anti-Semitic riots in Poland in March 1968 hit Erna Rosenstein hard. However, she could not be expelled from Poland and stayed in her home country until the end of her life.

Poems (selection)

  • Ślad ("The Trace") (Czytelnik 1972 )
  • Spoza granic mowy ("Outside language boundaries ") (Czytelnik 1976 )
  • Wszystkie ścieżki ("All Paths") (Wydawnictwo Literackie 1979 , ISBN 83-08-00156-4 )
  • Czas ("The Time") (Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 1998 , ISBN 83-06-01212-7 )
  • Płynie rzeka ("The river flows") (Chojnice, Muzeum Historyczno-Etnograficzne 1998 , ISBN 83-906163-2-7 )

Web links

Commons : Erna Rosenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Rosenstein, Erna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish painter and poet
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Lviv
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 2004
Place of death Warsaw