Erna Rosenstein in her studio on Karłowicza Street in Warsaw, 1958. Photography: Tadeusz Rolke, Agencja Gazeta
Born in 1913 in Lwów (now the Ukrainian city Lviv) and raised in Kraków, Erna Rosenstein emerged as part of the Polish avant-garde in the 1930s, associated with the Kraków Group. She studied at the Wiener Frauen Akademie in Vienna in 1932-1934 and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków between 1934-1937. She was part of a tight-knit circle whose artistic innovations were rooted in socially progressive left-leaning politics and who mobilized actions under the Communist Union of Polish Youth. As part of the Kraków Group, she identified with such fellow artists as Jonasz Stern, Jadwiga Maziarska, and especially, Tadeusz Kantor, whose underground experimental artistic and theater activities embraced Surrealism. In late 1937, prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, she spent several months in Paris where she saw the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme (International Surrealist Exhibition) organized by André Breton and Paul Éluard. Passing through Germany on her way home to Poland, she also visited the Berlin edition of the Nazi Party’s notorious Degenerate Art Exhibition. These two shows made a profound impact upon Rosenstein’s early artistic ideas and undoubtedly influenced her storied career.
When war erupted and the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Rosenstein returned with her family to Lwów. They spent two years living in the Soviet occupied city, which provided less hostile conditions for Jewish families; there Rosenstein joined the Association of Artists. When Lwów was seized by the German army in 1941, the artist and her mother moved to the Jewish ghetto while her father went into hiding. The family acquired false identity papers in 1942, and escaped the ghetto to flee toward Warsaw. The horrifying events that followed would haunt the imagery and themes Rosenstein explored in her work for the ensuing five decades—in the process of the family’s sojourn, Rosenstein witnessed the brutal murder of her parents in a forest in the middle of the night. Wounded but able to escape, she survived the next three years of the war by living under false identities, changing the whereabouts of her lodging in Warsaw, and ultimately hiding in the small rural town of Częstochowa until the war’s end. While Rosenstein produced artworks in the prewar period, nothing survived the war. She resumed painting in 1945, and, in the years that followed, joined the Polish Workers’ Party, became a member of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers (ZPAP) and the Young Artists Group, and exhibited her work in the National Modern Art Exhibition in Kraków (1948 – 1949). In 1947 and 1948, she traveled to Switzerland, England and Paris, where she saw a series of Surrealist exhibitions. While in Paris, she met her future husband, the literary critic and translator Artur Sandauer, with whom she eventually settled in Warsaw. Together they had a son, Adam Sandauer.
During the Socialist Realist period, between 1949 and 1955, Rosenstein withdrew from official artistic life; defying the communist-imposed artistic doctrine, she worked outside the mainstream art world. In 1955, she became one of the nine artists who reactivated the Kraków Group, staging the first modern art exhibition of the post-Stalin ‘thaw’ era. Her first solo exhibition was held in Warsaw in 1958 at the Kzywe Koło Gallery of Modern Art, run at the time by Marian Bogusz, a fellow artist and apostle of modernity. She came into prominence with a 1967 monographic exhibition at the Zachęta in Warsaw, a presentation designed by Tadeusz Kantor and inspired by the design of Surrealist exhibitions. She then participated in numerous national and international exhibitions such as the Golden Grape Symposiums in Zielona Góra and took part in Kantor’s happenings ‘Cricotage’ (1965) and ‘Panoramic Sea Happening’ (1967). In 1976, she was awarded the prestigious Cyprian Kamil Norwid Art Critics Award, and in 1996, the Jan Cybis Prize, Poland’s most respected artistic distinction.
Erna Rosenstein was an author of paintings, assemblages, drawings, objects, and artist books. She published seven volumes of poetry, among others Ślad (Trace) in 1972 and Spoza granic mowy (From Beyond the Edges of Speech) in 1976. She died on November 10, 2004 in Warsaw. Her works are in the collections of majors Polish and international collections such as the National Museums in Warsaw, Wrocław and Kraków as well as the Muzeum Sztuji in Łódź. Recent international presentations of Rosenstein’s works include Unorthodox at The Jewish Museum in New York (2016), documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel (2017), and the travelling exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Tate Modern in London (2021-2022).
Erna Rosenstein
Biography
Print BiographyStudied at the Wiener Frauenakademie, Vienna, Austria, 1932 – 1934
Studied Painting at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts, Poland, 1934 – 1937
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Foksal Gallery Foundation, 'Erna Rosenstein. Shadow Hunter', Warsaw, Poland
Art Gallery, 'Metamorphoses of Matter', Płock, Poland
Galeria Szydłowski, 'Erna Rosenstein. Tifles', Warsaw, Poland
Historical and Ethnographic Museum, Chojnice, Poland
Galeria DAP (Dom Artysty Plastyka), 'Book of Eternal Remembrance', Warsaw, Poland
Galeria na Piętrze, Koszalin, Poland
Contemporary Art Museum, Department of the Radom District Museum, 'Erna Rosenstein', Radom, Poland
Contemporary Art Museum, Department of the Radom District Museum, 'Erna Rosenstein. Drawings from 1945 – 1992 and Few Paintings and Fantastic Objects', Radom, Poland
Galeria Hadar, Kraków, Poland
House of Creative Environments, Kielce, Poland
Galeria Riviera, Warsaw, Poland
Galeria Nowa, Poznań, Poland
Galeria Mala, 'Paintings and Drawings of Erna Rosenstein', Kolobrzeg, Poland
Krzysztofory Gallery, 'Erna Rosenstein', Kraków, Poland
Selected Group Exhibitions
Tate Modern, 'Surrealism Beyond Borders', London, UK (Travelling Exhibition)
Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 'Never Again. Art Against War and Fascism in the 20th and 21st Centuries', Warsaw, Poland
Studio Gallery, 'Transfert', Warsaw, Poland
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, 'Estranged. March ’68 and Its Aftermath', Warsaw, Poland
Spectra Art Space, '1918-2018 Selected Fragments from Polish HERstory of Art', Warsaw, Poland
documenta / EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, 'documenta 14', Athens, Greece
documenta / Neue Galerie, 'documenta 14', Kassel, Germany
Zachęta National Art Gallery, 'Just After the War', Warsaw, Poland
Count Raczyński’s Tenement House, Zachęta National Art Gallery, 'TRUTH BEAUTY GOODNESS from the Zachęta Collection', Warsaw, Poland
Opera Gallery, Teatr Wielki Opera Narodowa, 'Jewish Artists in Postwar Poland (1945 – 1989)', Warsaw, Poland
Fizek Gallery, 'From the Mystery of Cobalt to the Depth of Ultramarine – Jewish Artists from the Signum Foundation Collection', Poznań, Poland
Zachęta National Art Gallery, 'Warszawa Moskwa 1900 – 2000', Warsaw, Poland
National Museum in Gdańsk, 'Polish Avantgarde Painting1950 – 1970, from Bogdan Jakubowski's Collection', Gdańsk, Poland
Museum of Contemporary Art, 'Female Art', Radom, Poland
Ego Galley, 'Women of Modernity', Poznan, Poland
Galeria Szydłowski, 'Artyści Krzywego Koła / Artists of Krzywe Koło', Warsaw, Poland
Zachęta National Art Gallery, 'Generations', Warsaw, Poland
Zapiecek Gallery, 'Jewish Artists Exhibition', Warsaw, Poland
National Museum in Warsaw, 'Polish Female Artists', Warsaw, Poland
Art Gallery Studio, 'An homage to Henryk Stażewski', Warsaw, Poland
Contemporary Art Museum, Department of the Radom District Museum, 'Drawing and comments', Radom, Poland
Galeria DAP (Dom Artysty Plastyka), 'The Cyprian Kamil Norwid Artistic Critic Award Winners from the Years 1967 to 1976', Warsaw, Poland
Zachęta National Art Gallery, 'Festival of Fine Arts', Warsaw, Poland
Polish Art National Museum in Wrocław, 'In the Circle of Surrealism: Metaphorical and Expressive Current in Polish Art', Wroclaw, Poland
Galeria Krzysztofory, 'Thirteenth Exhibition of the Kraków Group', Kraków, Poland
Kunsthal Charlottenborg, 'Exhibition of Five Polish Surrealists', Copenhagen, Denmark
Galeria Krzysztofory, 'Eighth Exhibition of the Kraków Group', Kraków, Poland
Bienal de São Paulo, '8th São Paulo Biennial. International Exhibition of surrealism and fantastic art', São Paulo, Brazil
Georgi-Dimitroff-Museum, 'Echos of the Anti-fascist Resistance in Polish Art', Leipzig, Germany (Travelling Exhibition)
International Exhibition Centre, 'Echos of the Anti-fascist Resistance in Polish Art', Berlin, Germany (Travelling Exhibition)
BWA District Museum and Exhibition Pavilions, 'Second Golden Grape Symposium', Zielona Góra, Poland
BWA City Exhibition Pavilion, 'Kraków Meetings', Kraków, Poland
Art Pavilion, 'Polish Resistance Movement in Art', Belgrade, Serbia
The International Meetings of Artists, Scientists, and Art Theorists, '2nd Plein-Air: The International Meetings of Artists, Scientists, and Art Theorists', Osieki, Poland
Galeria Krzywe Koło, 'Paintings from the First and Second Plein-Airs in Osieki', Warsaw, Poland
Adam Mickiewicz Museum, 'Exhibition of 12 artists invited to create the graphic design for Sir Thaddeus', Warsaw, Poland
Galeria Krzywe Koło, 'Confrontations 1963', Warsaw, Poland
BWA District Museum and Exhibition Pavilions, 'First Golden Grape Symposium', Zielona Góra, Poland
Community Arts Building, Wayne State University, 'The First American Exhibition of Polish Paintings by the Kraków Group', Detroit MI
Zachęta National Art Gallery, 'Metafory', Sopot, Poland (Travelling Exhibition)
Sopot Pawilony Wystawowe CBWA, 'Metafory', Sopot, Poland (Travelling Exhibition)
Galerie Schütze, 'Intergroup 1962. International Exhibition of Modern Art', Bad Godesberg / Rheinhausen / Essen, Germany
Galeria Krzywe Koło, 'Confrontations 1956–62', Warsaw, Poland
Galeria Krzywe Koło, 'Collections of the Galeria Krzywe Koło (Polish Modern Art 1957–61)', Warsaw, Poland
Galeria Krzywe Koło, 'Collection of Paintings', Warsaw, Poland
Galeria Krzysztofory, 'Exhibition of Drawings by Warsaw Artists', Kraków, Poland
Galeria Krzysztofory, 'Second Exhibition of the Kraków Group', Kraków, Poland
CCG, 'Polish Painters Exhibition', Paris, France
Bureau of Artistic Exhibitions (BWA), 'Exhibition of Three Painters: Erna Rosenstein, Jadwiga Maziarska and Tadeusz Romanowski', Lublin, Poland
Krzywe Koło Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Awards
Award of the Festival of Polish Contemporary Painting, Second Festival of Polish Contemporary Painting, Szczecin, Poland
Bibliography
Monographs
Artist's Books & Writings
Publications
Press
Szremski, Ania, 'Erna Rosenstein. The chaos of memory: a foraging artist receives her first solo show outside of Poland', on: 4columns.org, 5 November 2021, ill.
Zhang, Lisa Yin, 'Erna Rosenstein. Once Upon a Time', on: theguide.art, November 2021, ill.
___, 'A reading and response to the poems of Erna Rosenstein by The Wooster Group' [short film, Erna Rosenstein’s Paintings and Poems Read by Maura Tierney], on: hauserwirth.com/ursula, 24 October 2021, ill.
Traps, Yevgeniya, 'After the horrors of the Nazi invasion, a darkly gorgeous fairy tale emerges', on: forward.com, 14 October 2021, ill.
Angeleti, Gabriella, 'Three Exhibitions to See in New York This Weekend', in: The Art Newspaper, London, 8 October 2021, ill.
Kościuczuk, Krzysztof, 'Shining', in: Mousse Magazine, Milan, no. 75, Spring 2021, pp. 164-185, ill.
Kuc, Monika, 'Nazwiska Erny Rosenstein', in: Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw, no. 92, 1997
Jarecka, Dorota, 'Wystawa prac i wiersze Erny Rosenstein w warszawskiej Galerii Rzeźby. Obrazy przemijania', in: Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw, no. 175, 1994
Telewizja Polska, 'Nazwiska Erny Rosenstein' [The names of Erna Rosenstein, documentary, directed by Andrzej E. Falber], 1994
___, 'Malarstwo i poezja Erny Rosenstein', in: Dziennik Bałtycki, Gdańsk, no. 40, 1987
___, 'Alchemy', in: Poland Illustrated Magazine, Warsaw, no. 11, 1967, pp. 8-9
Borowski, Wiesław, 'Malarstwo Erny Rosenstein', in: Współczesność, Warsaw, no. 12, 1967
Gutowski, Maciej, 'Prace Erny Rosenstein w Krzysztoforach', in: Dziennik Polski, Kraków, no. 262, 1967
Witz, Ignacy, 'Wystawy warszawskie', in: Życie Warszawy, Warsaw, no. 122, 1967
Skrzynecki, Piotr, 'Spalenie czarownicy', in: Echo Krakówa, Kraków, no. 264, 1967
Kowalska, Bożena, ‘Obrazy Erny Rosenstein’, in: Stolica, Warsaw, no. 35, 1967
Gallery Exhibitions
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