Monday, December 3, 2012

Ella Rubin Art Gallery - The Holocaust Mood



About Ella Rubin:


Ella Rubin (Erna Bendit) (1927-2014) was born in Czernowitz, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine) to a Jewish family. There she was grown up in a pre WWII Austro-Hungarian environment (her mother tongue was German).

In 1941, during the Holocaust period, Ella and her family were deported to a few ghettos in Transnistria (Mogilev, Shargorod, Slidy) and returned to Czernowitz in 1944.

In 1946 Ella and her family moved to Galati, Romania on their way to Israel. In 1948 Ella married there Israel Rubin and there their only son, Tzvi, was born.

In 1962 the Rubin family immigrated to Israel and since then they live in Dimona, Israel.

About Ella Rubin's Art:

Ella Rubin has never studied art in a formal way but nevertheless she has been always interested in it deeply. Her artistic interests range from photography, fimo sculpting and writing but she is mostly attracted to painting.

She prefers oil painting, her style is realistic mostly pastoral Romanian landscapes and people, flowers, Gypsy women, clowns and nudes.

Although she has a Holocaust background she has never painted holocaust themes directly but nevertheless all her works are composed of dark hues and colors which reflect a mild sadness and her portraits are to some degree lifeless and lost in thought and even her clowns never smile (Ella's son's evaluation).

More about Ella Rubin and her art:
http://www.art-3000.com/artist/ella_rubin/
http://www.sciencegumshoes.com/family_history/chernivtsi_ukraine.html
http://www.ernarubin.org

The following are a few links about short Holocaust stories from Czernowitz which Erna Rubin wrote in Romanian and her son translated into Hebrew and English: