Lot 33030. Halina Olomucki, Portrait of a Woman. Oil on canvas, 1960. Signed and dated 1960 (lower left). 38 x 55.5 cm. Estimate $300 – 400. Hammersite. 05/12/21

Na próżno szukac choćby jednej pracy Haliny Olomuckiej (Ołomuckiej) sprzedanej na polskim rynku. W Polsce ta żydowska artystka o tragicznym życiorysie (Majdanek, Oświęcim, Ravensbruck) nie istnieje. Przypadkowo znalazłem na aukcji jeden jej olej sygnowany ‘Halina’ i połączyłem nieznane mi wcześniej nazwisko z historią. Obraz przedstawiający portret młodej i pięknej dziewczyny jest niezwykły jak na życiorys artystki (uczennicy Strzemińskiego) i jej twórczość związaną z mroczną przeszłością. Podaje poniżej życiorys artsytki jaki ściągnałem z jedej ze stron:

Halina Olszewski (later Olomucki/Olomucka) was born on November 24, 1919, in Warsaw, Poland, to Andrzej and Margarit-Hadassa Olszewski. (…) The family was Jewish but not observant. Halina attended a Yiddish speaking elementary school, then a public gymnasium. Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939. German troops entered Warsaw on September 29. Halina and her family were relocated to the ghetto. (…) Halina had drawn constantly from an early age and she continued to do this in the ghetto. She felt an urgent need to record daily life, even though, as she recalled: “I was in the same condition as every other person all around me. I saw them close to death but I never thought of myself close to death…. My job was simply to write down, to draw what was happening.” (…) She also recorded events such as selections, deportations from the Umschlagplatz, or holding place, near the railroad station, and the destruction of Dr. Janos Korczak’s orphanage. While doing forced labor outside the ghetto, Halina smuggled drawings out to a Polish friend in the Aryan section, dropping small packages of drawings as her brigade walked by. On some occasion, Halina also smuggled in food for her family In May 1943, after three days of waiting in the Umschlagplatz without food or water, Halina and her mother were put into a crowded train car and taken to Majdanek concentration camp. Her mother was sent to be killed upon arrival. Halina survived four selections done to separate those to be gassed from those to be used as laborers. One day, a guard came into the barracks and asked if there was anyone who knew how to paint and Halina volunteered. The work was drawing slogans on the walls, for which she received coffee and several slices of bread. The camp administrators liked her work and found other art projects for her. In July 1943, Halina was transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she was tattooed with the number 48652. She was assigned to Block 10 whose residents were used for experimental medical atrocities. Halina was a slave laborer in an ammunition factory, and then was assigned to paint signs and slogans for the barracks. (…) She also did sketches for the SS guards. She received increased rations of bread and cheese which she believed kept her alive. Halina hid pencil stubs and supplies from work, and secretly drew on any paper she could find, tissue and cigarette rolling paper, or scraps of discarded graph paper and reports. She had watercolors, but brushes had to be fashioned from cardboard strips. She made works based on her observations of the people and activities around her. (…) She hid her drawings in different spots around the camp, and in floors and walls near her bunk.(…) As Soviet forces neared, the camp was evacuated by death march on January 18, 1945, to Ravensbrück, and then to Neustadt-Glewe, where Halina was liberated by the Allies on May 2, 1945. Halina returned to Warsaw after the war ended in May. She found no surviving family members. She recovered drawings she had smuggled out of Warsaw Ghetto and later some works from Birkenau. From 1945-1947, she created artworks as her eyewitness testimony of all she had seen and experienced during the Shoah. In 1945, she married Boleslaw Olomucki, who became an architect, with training from the Art Academy in Lodz and Warsaw Polytechnic. (…) The couple moved to Lodz, where Halina studied at the Art Academy until 1950. The first exhibition of her artwork was in 1949 in Warsaw. She and Boleslaw had a daughter Miriam in 1951. In 1957, the family moved to Paris, France. Halina exhibited widely in Paris and London during the 1960s. In 1972, the family immigrated to Israel. Halina, 87, passed away on April 9, 2007, in Ashkelon, Israel.