Charlotte Salomon | |
|---|---|
 Charlotte Salomon painting in the garden of theVilla L'Ermitage,Villefranche-sur-Mer, about 1939 | |
| Born | (1917-04-16)16 April 1917 |
| Died | 10 October 1943(1943-10-10) (aged 26) |
| Resting place | 50°02′05″N19°10′33″E / 50.034752°N 19.175804°E /50.034752; 19.175804 |
| Notable work | Leben? oder Theater?: Ein Singspiel |
| Movement | Expressionism |
| Spouse | Alexander Nagler |
| Father | Albert Salomon |
Charlotte Salomon (16 April 1917 – 10 October 1943) was a German-Jewish artist born inBerlin. She is primarily remembered as the creator of an autobiographical series of paintingsLeben? oder Theater?: EinSingspiel (Life? or Theater?: A Song-play), the largest known artwork made by a Jewish person who died in the Holocaust,[1] consisting of 769 individual works painted between 1941 and 1943 in the south of France, while Salomon was in hiding from theNazis. In October 1943 Salomon, 5 months pregnant at that time, was captured and deported toAuschwitz, where she was murdered by the Nazis soon after her arrival.[2][3][4][5] In 2015, a 35-page confession by Salomon to the fatal poisoning of her grandfather, kept secret for decades, was released by a Parisian publisher.[6]
Charlotte Salomon came from a prosperousBerlin family. Her father,Albert Salomon was a surgeon;[9] her mother, Franziska (Grünwald), sensitive and troubled, committedsuicide when Charlotte was eight or nine, though she was led to believe her mother died frominfluenza.[5][10][11][12] Charlotte was sixteen when the Nazis came to power in 1933. She simply refused to go to school, and stayed at home.
At a time when German universities were restricting their Jewish student quota to 1.5% of the student body (providing their fathers had served on the front line in the First World War), Salomon succeeded in gaining admission to theVereinigte Staatsschulen für freie und angewandte Kunst (United State Schools for Pure and Applied Arts) in 1936. She studied painting there for two years, but by summer 1938 the antisemitic policy ofHitler'sThird Reich meant that it was too dangerous for her to continue attending the college and she did not return, despite winning a prize.[13]
Salomon's father was briefly interned inSachsenhausen concentration camp in November 1938, afterKristallnacht, and the Salomon family decided to leave Germany. Charlotte was sent to the South of France to live with her grandparents, already settled inVillefranche-sur-Mer nearNice. They lived in a cottage in the grounds of a luxurious villaL'Ermitage (now demolished) owned by a wealthy American, Ottilie Moore, who went on to shelter a number of Jewish children. Salomon left L'Ermitage with her grandparents to live in an apartment in Nice, where her grandmother attempted to hang herself in the bathroom. Her grandfather then revealed the truth to Charlotte about her mother's suicide, as well as the suicides of her aunt Charlotte, her great-grandmother, her great-uncle, and her grandmother's nephew. Shortly after the outbreak ofwar in September 1939, Charlotte's grandmother succeeded in taking her own life. Her grandmother had stockpiled Veronal andmorphine for when the German army arrived, but when she was denied access to her medication, she instead tried to hang herself before killing herself by jumping out a window.[5]
Charlotte and her grandfather were interned by the French authorities in a bleak camp in thePyrenees calledGurs. Charlotte recalls inLife? or Theater? that spending a night in a crowded train is preferable to spending one night with her grandfather:"I'd rather have ten more nights like this than a single one alone with him."[14] His constant request to share his bed with her and her own words in a confession letter of 35 pages, made public in 2015, suggest sexual abuse.
They were released on account of her grandfather's infirmity. Her grandfather returned to his life in Nice, while in Villefranche, Salomon experienced a nervous breakdown that stemmed from her grandfather’s revelations and her disgust for him. The local doctor, Dr. George Morridis, advised her to paint.[14]
Salomon rented a room in the pension La Belle Aurore inSaint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, and there she commenced the work that would outlive her. She began her series of 769 paintings – entitledLife? or Theater? – by stating that she was driven by "the question: whether to take her own life or undertake something wildly unusual". In the space of two years, she painted more than one thousandgouaches. She edited the paintings, re-arranged them, and added texts, captions, and overlays. She had a habit of humming songs to herself while painting.[15] The entire work was a slightly fantastic autobiography preserving the main events of her life – her mother's death, studying art in the shadow of the Third Reich, her relationship with her grandparents – but altering the names and employing a strong element of fantasy. She also added notes about appropriate music to increase the dramatic effect, and she calledLife? or Theater? a "Singespiel", [sic] or lyrical drama.
In 1942, Salomon, whose residence permit depended upon her caretaking of her grandfather, joined her grandfather in Nice. Soon after, she poisoned him with a homemade veronal omelette. The event is detailed in a 35-page illustrated confessional letter Salomon addressed to her former lover Alfred Wolfsohn, who never received the letter.[16][14][17][18]
In 1943, as the Nazis intensified their search for Jews living in the South of France, Salomon handed the work to a local Villefranche doctor she was acquainted with, and addressed it to Ottilie Moore—the German-American millionaire who owned the villa Salomon was hiding in at the time. She inscribed Moore's name at the top, and told the doctor: "Keep this safe, it is my whole life." Moore, who passed on the package to Charlotte's remaining family, only received the package upon her return to Europe in 1947, after the war's end.[19]
By September 1943, Salomon had married another German Jewish refugee, Alexander Nagler. The two of them were dragged from their house and transported by rail from Nice to the Nazi "processing centre" atDrancy near Paris.[20] By now, Salomon was five months pregnant. She was transported to Auschwitz on 7 October 1943 and was probably murdered in the gas chamber on the same day that she arrived there, 10 October.[21]
A large part ofLife? or Theater? is about her obsession with Amadeus Daberlohn, a voice teacher she met through her stepmother Paulinka Bimbam (Salomon gives all her characters humorous, often punning, pseudonyms). These sections are honest and compelling accounts of her passionate relationship withAlfred Wolfsohn – the one person who took her artistic work seriously. It is not possible to know if Salomon's version of her relationship with Wolfsohn corresponds with reality, but he was undoubtedly her first love.[22]
In 1943, when she was 26, Charlotte Salomon gave her collection of paintings to Dr. Moridis, a trusted friend who had counseled her through her depression.[5]
Life? or Theater? is intended as aGesamtkunstwerk, aWagnerian 'total work of art' within the tradition of the ambitious nineteenth-century German idea to fuse poetry, music and the visual arts. Yet Salomon's work is a reversal of that tradition which was intended to be the ultimate manifestation of Germanic culture – instead it is a work created by a "young woman who belonged to a supposedly alien race and who was therefore held not to even have a right to exist, let alone a place in society."[23]
The work includes some two hundred transparencies carrying text intended to overlay their associatedgouaches. The examples illustrated are typical. It is the closing gouache ofScene 1 of thePrelude and depicts the fictional Charlotte Kann (representing Salomon herself) in bed with her mother Franziska, who is telling Charlotte how wonderful it is in Heaven and how one day she (Franziska) will go there and turn into an angel and leave a letter for Charlotte on her windowsill describing life in Heaven.
The "signature image" (cf. Michael Steinberg 2005, p. 1) ofLife? or Theater? occurs as the final image of the concludingEpilogue section. Steinberg is reminded ofFranz Kafka's short storyIn the Penal Colony, in which sentence of execution is inscribed on the victim's back, and describes the image as combining the innocence of themermaid of Copenhagen with violent narrative.
Because of the nature of the work, it requires three images adequately to convey it. The image on the left is of the last page (verso) of four pages of densely packed text, carried on both sides, that conclude the epilogue. The center image is the final example of the transparent overlays that occur throughout the work, while the rightmost image is the gouache most closely associated with the work, depicting Charlotte Salomon kneeling before the sea with brush and paper in her hand and the wordsLife or Theater inscribed on her back.
The concluding words of the epilogue, quoting ideas of Alfred Wolfsohn,[29] are as follows:
...und sie sah – mit wachgeträumten Augen all die Schönheit um sich her – sah das Meer spürte die Sonne und wusste: sie musste für eine Zeit von der menschlichen Oberfläche verschwinden und dafür alle Opfer bringen – um sich aus der Tiefe ihre Welt neu zu schaffen | ... And with dream awakened eyes she saw all the beauty around her, saw the sea, felt the sun, and knew she had to vanish for a while from the human surface and make every sacrifice in order to create her world anew out of the depths. |
Salomon entitled her work,Leben? oder Theater?: Ein Singespiel.Singspiel is a German music form resembling "operetta" in some respects, although actors' parts are often spoken over, rather than sung with the music. The form is influenced by the Englishballad opera and the Frenchopéra-comique.[31] Music provides the backdrop for the play-form which is most often comical in nature,tragedy being a less-frequent motif. Romantic interest nearly always plays a prominent part.Singspiel was considered less elevated thanopera proper, often being written in the vernacular.[32] While celebrated composers such asMozart andSchubert are known to have worked in the form,Singspiel often introducedfolksongs,marches and narrative songs into its repertoire. By the early twentieth century, at the time of Salomon's appropriation of the form into her work, theSingspiel had ceased to be a contemporary form (althoughRalph Benatzky's popular 1930 workIm weißen Rößl is a singspiel andKurt Weill introduced the term 'songspiel' to describe some of his collaborations withBerthold Brecht). Note that Salomon's spelling, "Singespiel", adds an "e", but whether this was intentional or not is unclear.
Thus,Life? or Theater? is not only a series of paintings. It includes a script in the form of words that are either themselves in the form of paintings, written into the paintings, or presented as overlays to the images. It also has a "soundtrack" – music chosen by Salomon that reinforces her stories. These range fromNazi marching songs toSchubertlieder and extracts from the music ofMozart andMahler. The work is operatic in scale, highly modern in execution, unique in its form, and has an enduring power.
The paintings that make upLife? or Theater? were first exhibited in the 1960s. The first book of reproductions was published in 1963 and drew comparisons with the story ofAnne Frank.[33]Marc Chagall was shown the paintings and was impressed. In 1971, the collection was placed in the care of theJoods Historisch Museum,Amsterdam. In 1981, the Museum presented 250 scenes in narrative sequence, and critics began to comment on the work.[33] An exhibition at the LondonRoyal Academy in 1998 was an unexpected sensation, helped by the publication of a complete catalogue.[Notes 1] The work is still relatively little known, in part because Salomon's work does not appear on the international art market, as the whole archive belongs to the protectiveCharlotte Salomon Foundation based at the Joods Historisch Museum. The art historianGriselda Pollock dedicated to Charlotte Salomon a chapter in herVirtual Feminist Museum, analysing her work in terms of contemporary art, Jewish history and cultural theory.[34] In 2018 Griselda Pollock then published a major analysis of Life? or Theatre? titled 'Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory' (Yale University Press,ISBN 978-0300100723) challenging the autobiographical interpretations with an examination of the philosophical question the artist posed to herself through reviewing the history of the lives, deaths and life choices of women in her family and one World War I survivor. It offers close visual examination of eight works and also examines critically the evidence around sexual abuse and the 'confession' first made public in the second film by Frans Weisz about Charlotte Salomon titledLife or Theater (2011)
There have been several other exhibitions of parts ofLife? or Theater?, and a number of films and plays made about Charlotte Salomon's life, notablyCompany of Angels (2002) by the UK theatre companyHorse and Bamboo Theatre which toured the UK, Netherlands and U.S.[35] and in 1981, Dutch directorFrans Weisz released a feature film based on her life, entitledCharlotte, with the Austrian actressBirgit Doll playing the artist and Daberlohn played byDerek Jacobi. In 2011 he made a documentary revealing the contents of her last letter to Wolfsohn.
Saving Charlotte, a play by Judi Herman, was performed at theBridewell Theatre in London in October/November 1998.
Lotte's Journey, a play byCandida Cave, was performed atNew End Theatre, Hampstead, in October/November 2007.
In remembrance of the artist, French composerMarc-André Dalbavie dedicated an opera to her:Charlotte Salomon, commissioned by theSalzburg Festival. Thelibretto byBarbara Honigmann is based on the gouachesLeben? oder Theater? and integrates them into the performance in form of projections. The main role of Charlotte is performed by two artists, an actress and a singer. Most of the singing is done in French while the spoken parts are in German. The world premiere took place at Salzburg'sFelsenreitschule on 28 July 2014 on a panorama stage of 30 meters, conducted by the composer and directed byLuc Bondy. The two Charlotte Salomon roles were spoken by GermanJohanna Wokalek and sung by FrenchMarianne Crebassa.[36] The opera and its production received rave reviews by public and press.[citation needed]
A novel,Charlotte, written byDavid Foenkinos, was published in 2014, which won the prestigious French literary prizeLe prixThéophraste Renaudot, among other prizes.[37]
In February 2015, theMusiktheater im Revier (MiR) inGelsenkirchen presented a ballet-opera byMichelle DiBucci based on life and work of the artist. Its title wasCharlotte Salomon: Der Tod und die Malerin ("Death and the Painter"); it was choreographed and directed byBridget Breiner. Again the autobiographical workLife? or Theater? formed the basis for the dramatization.[38] DiBucci was originally commissioned to compose an opera on the life and work of Salomon by directorMarie Zimmermann [de] for the 2010Ruhrtriennale.[39] The work was not completed due to the death of Zimmermann in 2007. Several years later, DiBucci was approached by choreographer Bridget Breiner and asked to adapt the work into a full-length ballet.Charlotte Salomon: Der Tod und die Malerin was the winner of a 2015Der Faust, Germany's highest honor in theatre. Bridget Breiner received the award for Best Choreography.[40]
In 2017, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Charlotte Salomon's birth,Charlotte: A Tri-Coloured Play with Music (Composer:Aleš Brezina, Librettist:Alon Nashman, Director/Scenographer:Pamela Howard)[41] was presented at theLuminato Festival in Toronto, and at the World Stage Design Festival in Taipei, Taiwan.[42] This singspiel, which "gives Salomon a wonderfully authentic and persuasive voice onstage",[43] has music by Czech composerAleš Březina [cs], alibretto by Canadian performer/writer Alon Nashman, and is directed and designed by UK-based Pamela Howard, author ofWhat is Scenography?.Charlotte: A Tri-Coloured Play with Music was developed with the assistance ofCanadian Stage Company, and the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts.[44] The role of Charlotte was played by Canadian soprano Adanya Dunn. In 2019, the company performed the play in Israel, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic.[41][45][46][47]
An animated movie calledCharlotte, based on Salomon's life and paintings, was released in 2021.[48] It was initially set to be directed byBibo Bergeron with a 10 million euro budget,[49] but Bergeron left the film in October 2019.[50] Eric Warin, co-director ofBallerina, and Tahir Rana, director ofWelcome to the Wayne, co-directed the film, which features the voice acting ofKeira Knightley as Salomon in the English version,[50][51] andMarion Cotillard in the French version.[51] The film had its world premiere at the2021 Toronto International Film Festival on 13 September 2021.[52]
In 2022 a documentary entitledCharlotte Salomon, Life and the Maiden (Charlotte Salomon, la jeune fille et la vie)[53][54] honored her life and work.
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Since 1992 a primary school in Berlin bears the name of the artist, in 2006 a street inBerlin-Rummelsburg was named after her. On 21 April 2012 aStolperstein in front of her former residential house inBerlin-Charlottenburg, Wielandstraße 15, was dedicated to Charlotte Salomon. In addition a Memorial Plaque on the facade of the building commemorates the artist.[55]
