Erna Rosenstein: Once Upon a Time

The first overview on Erna Rosenstein, surrealist, poet and creator of mesmerizing dreamscapes in painting and assemblage

A New York Times critics' pick | Best Art Books 2021

This is the first ever English-language monograph on the vast and complex oeuvre of Erna Rosenstein (1913-2003), a prolific artist whose varied output was informed by her experience as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust.

Released on the occasion of the eponymous, upcoming exhibition at Hauser & Wirth in New York, and edited and with a text by exhibition curator Alison Gingeras, this book serves as an introduction to Rosenstein and her story. Alongside an extensive plates section, poems by Rosenstein are included in the book, as well as a special insert reproducing a fairy tale authored and illustrated by the artist. Art historian Dorota Jarecka has also contributed an essay, and the book additionally includes Rosenstein’s own narrative testimony of the war in Poland.