The most important part of the exhibition, titled The Time of Tears, the Time of Hatred, the Time of War, consists of paintings, drawings and graphic works that constitute an artistic document of the martyrdom and extermination of the Jews in Poland during World War II. The subject refers to the artist's private experiences. First, as a seventeen-year-old boy, he survived the hell of the Białystok ghetto and its liquidation. Then, as a young twenty-year-old man, he underwent the horror of the extermination camps at Sztutowo, Birkenau and Buna, and after the evacuation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, lived through tragic deportations and "death transports" to Mathausen, Sachsenhausen, Flossenbrg, and Dachau. Celnikier's canvases: Hostages, Revolt, Ashes, Day of Rebellion, Jewish Fiances, and Birkenau are very powerful in rendering the dramatic atmosphere of the presented scenes. They revoke the cruelty of the situation in which the Jews found themselves, condemned to persecutions and death. In the graphic compositions devoted to the Shoah, the artist using a sharp nervous line and highly expressive colour patches depicts resettlements, requisitions and mass murders perpetrated on the helpless Jewish population; he tells us about the martyrdom of the persecuted nation, revoking the faces of people permanently threatened by death. Celnikier is one of those who through their participation in the cataclysm that by far surpassed all previous human experiences, took upon himself the duty of passing on the story of the victims suffering in ghettoes and extermination camps. This part of the exhibition refers to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which occurred on 27 January 1945.
On this occasion, the celebrations will take place in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, bringing together the representatives of the highest authorities of Poland, Israel and other countries, including France. In Celnikier's rich artistic creation, besides compositions devoted to the tragic fate of the Jews during World War II, a special place is occupied by female portraits and nudes. And so it is portraits, nudes, still lifes and landscapes that fill the second part of the exhibition, entitled The Time of Building, the Time of Love, the Time of Peace Within this space around 80 oil paintings and 80 prints and drawings will be put on show. The dominant set will, obviously, consist of portraits of women especially of one, named Anne, the artists wife. In this unusual gallery of images we can see the faces full of inner tension, solemn, intent, the faces of persons fully aware of life.
The exhibition is complemented with the landscapes from the surroundings of Jerusalem and Sainte-Agns in southern France. These are the views of the places to which the artist would constantly return. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with 100 reproductions, a chronology of the artists life and oeuvre, and the list of the presented paintings, drawings and prints. The exhibition has been organized with the financial help of the Fondation pour la Mmoire de la Shoah. January 26, 2006 Source: www.artdaily.com
