Erna Rosenstein (1913-2004) Lot n° 54

Erna Rosenstein (1913-2004) Wodotrysk ognia (Fire Fountain), 1977 Oil on canvas Signed lower middle and dated lower right Oil on canvas; signed lower middle and dated lower right 92, 5 x 74 CM - 36 3/8 x 29 1/8 in. Wincenty Smolak EXHIBITIONS Szczecin, Zamek Ksi???t Pomorskich, IX Festiwalu Polskiego Malarstwa Wspólczesnego, July-September 1978 New York, Hauser & Wirth, Erna Rosenstein?Once Upon a Time, April 23-July 31, 2020, reproduced on p. 117 of the exhibition catalog BIBLIOGRAPHY Erna Rosenstein, cat. exp, Galeria BWA, Bydgoszc, 2004, listed under no. 585 Erna Rosenstein's work combines elements that might be considered contradictory: formal languages that are both figurative and abstract, as well as personal and unique experiences represented alongside universal pictorial issues. While her creations are primarily in the realm of painting, her conception of art went far beyond the confines of the canvas: not only did she create assemblages and objects, she was also a poet. The usual stylistic categories and qualifiers do not do justice to the full extent of her artistic practice. Nevertheless, a single term is increasingly used to try to capture all facets of this extraordinary work: surrealism, or rather the surrealist aesthetic, used by Rosenstein. From her youth, Rosenstein was linked to revolutionary movements, particularly in terms of their social orientations. In the 1930s, she studied art in Vienna and Krakow. In both cities she frequented communist political groups, which was illegal in Poland at the time, and Rosenstein herself took responsibility for this. She was arrested once because of her presence at a political demonstration. The circle of artists with which she was involved at the time was the Krakow Group. It is a collective of young painters and sculptors who share a clearly defined ideology (a left-wing perspective on social and political life) rather than a specific aesthetic, even if it can be broadly described as modernist. Rosenstein's discovery of Surrealism took place precisely during this period. In 1938, she traveled to Paris where she visited the International Exhibition of Surrealism. It should be noted here that the French Surrealists of the time had proclaimed their attachment to Marxism and revolutionary thought. There is no doubt that these events had an impact on both his life and his artistic practice; an impact that would be felt in the following decades. Poetic titles referring to abstract notions and the use of figurative language were major features of Rosenstein's painting practice, making the abstract paintings much more representational and influencing the viewer's perception of the work. In this way, the abstract images depicted in his paintings take on a more concrete meaning, without losing their ambiguity and equivocation. By moving away from any clear indication of the nature of the elements represented, their artistic value is defined and their relationship to the surrealist imagination is emphasized. Wodotrysk ognia (Fountain of Fire), a work painted in 1977 and presented here, is a perfect example of this aesthetic where the title creates a context for potential understanding of the painting which, paradoxically, nevertheless escapes any precise description or interpretation. The "subject" of the work is almost abstract, some of the forms depicted on the canvas appear to be characters yet lack a clear identity or function. The title allows the viewer to imagine flames or some form of water splash, but what we can see is only an allusion to these phenomena, with no certainty of objective existence or intent on the part of the artist as we try to perceive it. Is it "real" or simply a product of our imagination? An important part of Rosenstein's art has been shaped by her tragic fate as a Jew: barely surviving the Holocaust, she witnessed the death of her parents. The memory of her family's murder appears literally in her art, expressed with great dramatic force. She would resort to this commemoration of a tragic past recorded through a plastic vocabulary throughout the decades following the war. This practice is sometimes compared to the approach of the Surrealists whose works were marked by a "compulsion to repeat", underlining, by this additional link, the importance of the Surrealist aesthetic in her creative process. In the post-war years, Rosenstein became one of the