Felka Platek - Eine Künstlerin im Exil

To mark the 125th birthday of the artist Felka Platek (1899 Warsaw - 1944 Auschwitz), the Felix Nussbaum House in the Museumsquartier Osnabrück is presenting a special exhibition on the life and work of the painter from 25.2.2024 at 15:30. The exhibition "Felka Platek - An Artist in Exile" honors the life and work of this Jewish painter, who was not only a talented artist, but also an artist colleague and wife of Felix Nussbaum.
 
With 26 paintings, the Museumsquartier Osnabrück owns the world's largest collection of Felka Platek. The special exhibition shows paintings and prints from all of the artist's creative phases from the museum's own holdings, beginning in Berlin in the late 1920s, through the years of exile in Italy and Belgium to her last works, which were created in hiding in Brussels.
 
Felka Platek was born in Warsaw on January 3, 1899 and began her artistic training in Berlin after the First World War. She attended the renowned Lewin Funcke School, where she trained as a portrait painter. In 1924, she met the painter Felix Nussbaum, with whom she moved into a studio apartment in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1929. At the end of 1932, she left Berlin to accompany Nussbaum to Italy and never returned to Germany.
In 1935, the couple emigrated to Belgium, where they first lived in Ostend and from 1937 in Brussels. In 1940, Belgium was occupied by the Germans and the marginalization of the Jews began. In 1942, Felka Platek and Felix Nussbaum were wanted by the Gestapo and were forced to leave their home. They found temporary refuge with friends, but returned in March 1943 and moved into an attic hiding place at 22 Rue Archimède. During this time in hiding, they created still lifes that reflect the experience of isolation and life in hiding. There, locked in a confined space, they limited their works to the meagre, domestic inventory.
On June 20, 1944, Felka Platek and Felix Nussbaum were arrested in Brussels and deported to Auschwitz on July 31, 1944, where they were murdered.
 
The exhibition is a tribute to a remarkable artist and a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit and the importance of art in difficult times.

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