Charlotte Salomon in Close up

Life? or Theater?

Charlotte Salomon is a young Jewish woman living in Berlin in the 1930s. She grows up in an environment surrounded by music, art, and culture, and attends art school. In 1939, she flees the Nazis to Southern France, where she stays with her grandparents. There, she creates multimedia artwork that is extraordinary for its time and consists of nearly 800 gouaches. Salomon was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 26. In 1947, her parents discovered her artwork, Life? or Theater?, and published it. The work speaks to the imagination of many and becomes world-famous.

Berlin & Film

Salomon's hometown, Berlin, was a centre of artistic excellence where the - then relatively new - medium of film was explored in various ways. Directors and screenwriters crafted stories and images in exceptional and innovative forms. The audience experienced a new world in the movie theatres, full of visual stimuli and experiences. Charlotte also enjoyed going to the cinema. This influence clearly resonates in her artwork Life? or Theater?. The works strongly resemble a storyboard for a film. She also uses flashbacks and interludes reminiscent of intertitles in silent films from the 1920s & 30s.

New Light

Charlotte Salomon in Close-up sheds new light on Salomon's work. Combining film footage from that era with gouaches from her artwork allows you to observe the influence of pre-war Berlin cinema on Salomon's unique artistic legacy.