Maja Berezowska

Maja Berezowska's grave in Warsaw

Maja Berezowska (born April 13, 1898 in Baranowicze , † May 31, 1978 in Warsaw ; actually Maria Berezowska ) was a Polish painter, graphic artist, caricaturist and set designer.

Life

Berezowska was the daughter of an engineer who worked on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway . She received her artistic training at a private art school in Saint Petersburg (1908–1909) and at the art colleges in Kraków (1910–1912) and Munich (1913). In 1918 she married the painter and set designer Kazimierz Grus . She had her first individual exhibition of her works in 1916 in Kiev . The central theme of her works (erotic graphics) could already be seen at this exhibition. The first theater works were made in Lemberg from 1919 . From 1933 to 1936 she lived in Paris , where she published caricatures in the French daily press. Her Hitler caricatures caused a stir in 1935 , for which she was reported by the German ambassador in Paris. However, the process was lost for the National Socialists . After she was back in Poland in 1936, she designed the costumes for Polish revue stars. When the Second World War broke out in 1939 , she hid in the Polish province. She did not return to Warsaw until 1941, where she was arrested by the National Socialists in 1942. She was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp , where she was sentenced to death for her caricatures. However, the sentence was not carried out. Berezowska now painted her fellow inmates in the concentration camp and came to Sweden after the liberation in 1945 through the Red Cross . There she was able to exhibit her work from the concentration camp. In June 1946 she returned to Poland, where she mainly concentrated on her theater work and worked mainly as a set designer in a wide variety of theaters across the country. In 1977 she retired from professional life.

Web links

• Link to the Caricature Museum in Warsaw with an example of their work
• Maja Berezowska 1956