Jankel Adler (1895-1949)

Joanna Pollakowna comments on Adler's works from this period, 'Then came the last stage of his work, during which Adler's vision was to assume its final and definite form. The time of war, of Shaoh - the Holocaust - demolished the old view of the world; with it, an old language of forms was also smashed to pieces. In order to express the inexpressible, a new voice had to be found, a language made up of broken pieces - eloquent and reticent at the same time; a truly human voice characterised by tragic restraint and simplicity ... In those pictures painted during and immediately after the Second World War, his much-experimented rich texture harmoniously compliments wide black outlines and extensive colour planes' (J. Pollakowna, Exhibition catalogue, 'Reflections on Jankel Adler's Art', Jankel Adler, Dusseldorf, Kunstalle, 1985, pp. 249-250).