Traces

The exhibition title "Traces" refers to the title of the poetic  debut Erna Rosenstein in 1972 and the titles of her poems and paintings. The  artist often repeated this word in different ways, sometimes replacing it with other words which also could refer people, moments and places that were only in memory. Erna Rosenstein used often an expression "to kept something under closed lids," it referred sometimes just to memory, sometimes to the imagination, but first of all referred to her own and others' work. She painted what could be stored under the eyelids and valued what was left under the eyelids. When she felt the need to paint, the images were coming from under the eyelids. In this way, she defined the criteria for the value of her own work, but also other artists. It is important in art, whether it accompanies us and whether we can be with it and whether it can be kept in our memory. To keep under the eyelids means to see in a special way so as to keep the memory of loved ones. Traces are paintings, drawings, poems, it is the work of an artist who is around us and whom we recall and re-find. There are images that were lost somewhere, were dispersed and there are those that have changed because of the passage of time, something fell apart, something has been damaged. Some images have been changed by the frames in which they were put. It all blurs traces, changes them. But everyone who accompanied the work of Erna Rosenstein, also have changed, today they look at her work differently, more carefully and consistently they look at its "traces". The most unchanged are those kept under the eyelids.
 
At the exhibition are shown 18 paintings, the oldest - "The funeral during autumn" (1958) - the artist painted after the death of her dearest friend Maria Jarema, "Time of contempt" (1968) was created after the tragic experience of Polish March 1968. Most of the images are from the 80s and 90s, including the famous "lips" (1989) and "Homeless images" (1982-1989).
Erna Rosenstein
 
She was born in Lviv in 1913, died in Warsaw in 2004. She studied in Vienna (1932-1934), then in Cracow (1934-1936). She got involved with  the artists from Krakow Group. After the war she took part in the Exhibition of Modern Art (1948). In the years 1949-1955 she did not participate in the official artistic life. In 1955, she was one of nine artists (Jonas Stern, Maria Jerema, Jadwiga Maziarska, Tadeusz Kantor, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Jerzy Nowosielski, Jerzy Skarżyński, Kazimierz Mikulski) who reactivated activity of the Krakow Group with a joint exhibition. Erna Rosenstein then takes an active part in the artistic life again:  in plein air sessions in Osieki, in festivals of Polish Contemporary Painting in Szczecin, in the symposiums "Golden Grape" in Zielona Góra, "Winter Salon" in Radom.
 
She collaborated with the Gallery Krzysztofory with Gallery Krzywe Koło, Gallery Współczena, Studio Gallery, Galeria Rzeźby, the Gallery Library and Gallery Stefan Szydlowski. She practiced painting, drawing, assemblage, poetry and minor literary form. She  published several volumes of poetry in Polish publishing houses and a selection of poetry in Germany.
 
Erna Rosenstein is the winner of the C. K. Norwid Prize (1976) and the Jan Cybis Prize (1996).