Lea Langer Grundig. Begei Haharegah [“In the Valley of Slaughter.”]

(HOLOCAUST).

Tel Aviv

1944

First edition. Sixteen horrifying images by Grundig depicting the transport of Jews to the death camps. With poem by Shin Shalom.

16 uncommonly early Holocaust-themed artworks by the German-Jewish artist Lea Grundig (1906-1977). Born in Dresden into an Orthodox family, after a spell in the Zionist youth movement Blau-Weiss she became a Communist and subsequently created much agitprop art. She married the non-Jewish artist associated with the New Objectivity movement Hans Grundig (1901-58) and when her Communist husband was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp Lea managed to flee to Palestine in 1940. In 1949 she returned to Dresden (East Germany) and became a professor at the local Academy of Fine Arts adapting the style of socialist realism and taking an active part in visualizing the ideology of the new German Democratic Republic. Currently The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung of Tel Aviv along with The Presler Museum are exhibiting “From Dresden to Tel Aviv: Lea Grundig 1933-1948” curated by Gideon Ofrat.