Erna ROSENSTEIN (1913-2004), Composition
oil, canvas panel painting
35 x 49 cm
signed p.d
Erna Rosenstein (Lviv 1913 - Warsaw 2004) studied from 1932 to 1934 at the Wiener Frauen Akademie, and then from 1934 to 1936 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lviv under the direction of Professor Wojciech Weiss. During the years of her studies, she was associated with the circle of the first "Cracow Group," took part in the preparation of the performances of the Cricot Theater, and herself performed in the play "Cracow Lajkonik." In 1937 she left briefly for Paris. Just before World War II, she moved to Lviv. After escaping from the ghetto there, she hid in Warsaw. After the Uprising, she stayed in Grodzisk and Czestochowa, and returned to Krakow after the war ended. She exhibited with the Group of Young Artists (1946) and at the First Exhibition of Modern Art (1948/49). In Krakow, she married Artur Sandauer. In 1949 she moved to Warsaw. She began to exhibit again in 1955, and from 1957 became permanently associated with the reactivated, so-called second "Krakow Group". She participated in the Second and Third Exhibitions of Modern Art, Warsaw 1957 and 1959, as well as in many exhibitions, plein-airs and symposia of the avant-garde movement of the 1960s, including the regular Koszalin Plein-airs in Osieki (1964-1978) and others. She also exhibited many times at the Festivals of Polish Contemporary Painting in Szczecin (1962-1988), the Krakow Encounters, the Festivals of Fine Arts in Warsaw's Zachęta, etc. In 1972 she was awarded the Cyprian Kamil Norwid Art Criticism Prize. She creates paintings, drawings, collages, author's books and spatial objects, for which the common denominator is surrealism, expressed in surprising, poetic juxtapositions of significant elements, dreamlike metaphors, richness of associations and imagination. The artist is also an established poet, and has published several volumes of poetry, including in the Czytelnik and Wydawnictwo Literackie.
