Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theatre?

By Charlotte Salomon, Judith C.E. Belinfante, Evelyn Benesch

Book Overview

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. The work Salomon left behind is, in a very real sense, her pi ce de r sistance - 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. Divided into three sections, the gouaches unveil a vivid self-portrait spanning across all facets of Charlotte's existence: from a complicated family life, marked by the suicides of nearly all female relatives; growing up in Berlin; her close relation to singing teacher Alfred Wolfsohn; the rise of the Nazis; to her exile to France in 1939. Throughout, the artist challenges these destructive forces by deploying playful pseudonyms and fantastical elements alongside emotional candor, remarkable observation, and a meticulous visual memory. Her film strip-like sequences are interspersed not only with words but also musical suggestions, making Life? or Theater? the storybook for a whole musical, years before the heyday of that genre. Without comparison, the gouaches are a triumph of personal truth and individual expression. Published here with a selection of the 450 most important pieces, Life? Or Theatre? is an unrivaled opus magnum from a great and ambitious artist, dark with her early death, but luminous with her precision, her lyricism, and her courage.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3836570777
• ISBN13: 9783836570770
• Release Date: November 2017
• Publisher: Taschen
• Length: 600 Pages
• Weight: 3.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 7.0" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

A strange and moving masterpiece

I saw the pictures reproduced in this book in a special exhibition at the 'Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum' in Jerusalem. I was in the company of a professional artist who was astounded by the insightfulness, intelligence and even humor of Salomon's work. She tells a harrowing and tragic family story in this work. This is what Wikipedia has to say about her work. "This series of gouaches is an extraordinary and unique document. In great detail it tells the story of Charlotte's family and friends, her own internal life, the political background, and her obsessive love affair. Charlotte Salomon had an artistic training and her household was highly cultured. The way she tells this story is full of tragedy, but the telling also reveals Charlotte's sly humour and wit. The series starts out with highly detailed and multi-layered images of the life and relationship between her mother and father. As the story unfolds the style gets broader and more expressionistic. The last 'chapters' are almost violent in their expression, as if Charlotte is aware of her impending fate and can hardly wait to write and paint the details of her story as the Gestapo close in on her life. A large part of Life? or Theater? is about her obsession with 'Amadeus Daberlohn', a voice teacher she met through her stepmother 'Paulinka Bimbam' (Charlotte gives all her characters humorous, often punning, pseudonyms). These sections are honest and compelling accounts of her passionate relationship with Alfred Wolfson - the one person who took her artistic work seriously. It is not possible to know if Charlotte's version of her relationship with Wolfson corresponds with reality, but he was undoubtedly her first love." The work also has indications for original scored music. And there are captions with each of the drawings make it into a kind of fascinating cartoon -like narrative. Salomon and her husband were murdered by the Nazis. We cannot know the work she might have done had it been given her to live.

Life ? Theatre ? You are the director

It's a journey into time... I have bought after seeing the exhibition of Charlotte works in London. The book, which is a collection of her paintings, takes the visitor through her animated 'play' into her life, the destruction withing her and around her. But the beauty prevails.