Objects

Dzieci za drutami (Children Behind Barbed Wire) – unpublished version (I)

Siemaszko, Olga (1911-2000)

A depiction of seven women with children in their arms, mainly in brown and black. The women and children are naked, above them is the outline of an elongated cloud. Fragments of the figure's outlines were highlighted with ink, which refracts light differently than paint and additionally emphasises selected elements.

The composition, like all works for the book "Ręka umarłej" (Hand of a Deceased) painted on canvas, has a brown, rectangular frame made of paint; it reaches the edges of the canvas cut to a rectangle. This finishing of the painting is one of the exceptions in this project; most often, the artist left the outer edges of the canvas uncut and the outer edges of the frames unfinished. Regardless of the cut, the outer fragments of the work show streaks and brush marks, and the right inner edge of the frame is unfinished halfway up – the line is discontinuous, so that brown and black are not clearly separated.

This is probably one of the unpublished versions of the illustrations for the story "Dzieci za drutami” (Children Behind Barbed Wire) by Maria Zarębińska-Broniewska. If so, it is a metaphorical representation of mothers imprisoned in Auschwitz, longing for their children.

The collection of the POLIN Museum includes another version of the illustration, similar in concept (MPOLIN-M1622), as well as a pre-war woodcut by Olga Siemaszko (in two versions), which was probably treated by the artist at some stage of her work as an inspiration for this illustration (see MPOLIN-M1649, MPOLIN-M1650). These prints were kept in the same folder as the rest of the materials for the book "Ręka umarłej" (Hand of a Deceased).

Eventually, an illustration depicting empty prams against a background of barracks and a crematorium was printed in the volume (the original did not survive in the artist's archive).


Przemysław Kaniecki

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Information about the object
Author / creator
Siemaszko, Olga (1911-2000)
Object type
painting
Time of creation / dating
20th century
Place of creation
Warszawa (mazovian province)
Technique
painter’s
painter’s
Material
canvas
aquarel paint
ink
Keywords
Copyright status
contact the Museum
Owner
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Identification number
MPOLIN-M1621
Localization
The object is not currently on display
The purchase of work for the POLIN Museum's collection was subsidized by funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for Promotion of Culture - a state purpose fund, program: National Collection of Contemporary Art.