Life? or Theatre? : a selection of 450 gouaches / Charlotte Salomon ; essays by Judith C.E. Belinfante and Evelyn Benesch ; editing Alix Sharma-Weigold and Bhesham Sharma ; translation Elizabeth Clegg (essays and appendix), Leila Vennewitz (texts of 'Life? or Theatre?').
When German artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943) handed her gouache series Life? or Theater? over to a friend, she beseeched him to "take good care of it, it is my entire life." A few months later, the five-months pregnant Charlotte was picked up by a Gestapo truck, deported to Drancy, and then on to Auschwitz, where she died upon arrival at the age 26. Trauma haunts many of the pages, but there is defiance, too. Born of a family plagued by depression, the work Salomon left behind is, in a very real sense, her piece de resistance - in her own words, "something wildly eccentric." A cycle of nearly 1,300 autobiographical gouaches, it combines creative force with pioneering personal narrative into one shattering document of self-expression.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.