Reading Charlotte Salomon
By: edited by Michael P. Steinberg and Monica Bohm-Duchen.
Contributors: Steinberg, Michael P.; Bohm-Duchen, Monica.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Ithaca, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
ISBN-13: 9780801439711
Subjects: Salomon, Charlotte, 1917-1943 -- Criticism and interpretation.; Salomon, Charlotte, 1917-1943.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in art.; Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Germany -- Berlin -- Personal narratives.
Genres: Personal narratives.
Description: "Charlotte Salomon was born in Berlin in 1917 and was murdered at Auschwitz at the age of twenty-six. While in exile in the south of France from 1940 until her deportation in 1943, she created some 1,325 small gouaches using only the three primary colors plus white. From these she gathered nearly 800 into a work that she titled Life? or Theater? A Play with Music, which employs images, texts, and musical and cinematic references. The narrative, informed by Salomon's experiences as a talented, cultured, and assimilated German Jew, depicts a life lived in the shadow of Nazi persecution and a family history of suicide, but also reveals moments of intense happiness and hope. The tone of the gouaches becomes increasingly raw and urgent as Salomon is further enmeshed in grim personal as well as political events. The result is a deeply moving meditation on life, art, and death on the eve of the Holocaust."--BOOK JACKET.