This Friday, the New York gallery Hauser & Wirth is opening an exhibition devoted to the work of Polish painter and poet of Jewish origin, Erna Rosenstein. It is presented as the artist’s first monographic exhibition outside Poland.
In presenting Erna Rosenstein (1913 – 2004), the Hauser & Wirth gallery emphasizes that the artist’s work, unusual paintings, drawings, assemblages, as well as poems, diaries, and “deceptively capricious” fairy tales for children reflect her wartime experiences, attachment to surrealism, as well as leftist ideologies.
“Steeped in an extraordinary history and responding to the Nazi occupation of Poland, personal traumas suffered in the Holocaust, the postwar sociopolitical upheaval of her native country, and passionate engagement in the intellectual circles of her times, Erna Rosenstein’s work defies simple classification. Her six-decades long career was fueled by the formation of prewar artistic, intellectual, and political affiliations, and is expressed through her continued oscillation between autobiographical figuration and biomorphic abstraction. Grappling with themes of memory, trauma, longing, and loss, she used paint, ink, and found materials to suggest a world tinged with allegory, enchantment, and fairy tale,” emphasizes the gallery in its announcement of the exhibition, which will last until December 23.
The exhibition “Once Upon a Time” was prepared by the curator Alison M. Gingeras. At Hauser & Wirth, she has gathered over forty works that are rarely shown outside of Poland. The gallery organized the exhibition in cooperation with the Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw, and with the support of the Polish Cultural Institute in New York.
More about the exhibition -> Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Erna Rosenstein “Once Upon a Time”