"Seventy of these acrylic #paintings are the subject of a new exhibition titled “(post) #JEWISH… #Shtetl Opatów Through the Eyes of Mayer Kirshenblatt” at Warsaw’s POLIN #Museum of the #History of #Polish#Jews.
Kirshenblatt painted from memory: the synagogue, men washing in the mikvah ritual bathhouse, the cemetery, townspeople, school scenes including a pupil being flogged by a teacher, an illicit cigarette factory, the illegal slaughter of a cow, bagel sellers, a water-carrier, circus performers.
There were no forbidden subjects. One painting depicts a visibly pregnant bride at her wedding, and another features the town’s two prostitutes, Jaźdka and Świderka."
A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations.