SKETCHES BY MAYA BEREZOWSKA

ink on paper, 33 x 24 cm

two-sided painting

year of creation: 1954

Maja Berezowska (1893-1978) Polish painter, graphic artist and caricaturist. She gained popularity primarily by creating extremely subtle drawings and graphics on erotic subjects. Before the war, she made illustrations for popular weeklies of the time, including "Szpilka" and "Cyrulik Warszawski". In the 1930s, during her stay in Paris, she made a series of mocking caricatures of Hitler for the newspaper "ICI Paris", entitled "Sweet Adolf's Pleasures" . After their publication, the German embassy accused the artist of insulting the head of state. The case for that moment ended with a symbolic fine for Berezowska. Unfortunately, she was then put on the Nazi blacklist, which forced her to go into hiding during the war. In 1942, as a result of a denunciation, she was caught by the Gestapo and held at the Pawiak prison. Not long after her capture, she was sentenced to death for insulting Hitler and transported to the Ravensbrück camp, where she was to await execution. During her time in the camp, she continued to create, depicting scenes of camp life, as well as portraying fellow inmates and caretakers, whom she depicted as full of life, flushed and bursting with vitality, despite extreme exhaustion and emaciation. After the camp was liberated by Soviet troops, she left for Stockholm. After her rehabilitation, she showed work from this period at exhibitions in Sweden and Denmark. She returned to Poland in 1946.