Berlin MemorialThematic Series
The “Berlin Memorial” series (1988-1990) was created in the wake of Steffa Reis’ first visit back to Berlin, the city of her birth, in December 1988. She had been invited by the Berlin Arts Council to hold a retrospective, and when returning to open that exhibition in November 1989, she experienced the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall.
While strolling through the streets, childhood memories resurfaced: Sunday visits to her grandmother, sculpted marzipan confections in shop windows, picnics by the river with her uncle and then the uncertainty and premonition of the 1930s, the family fleeing Nazi Germany and the horrors of the Holocaust. These themes are implicitly reflected and reenacted in such works as Foreboding, Mysterious City, Ashes, and Destruction. The Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall, symbols of the tumultuous history of the city, are both recurring motifs.
The “Berlin Memorial” series (1988-1990) was created in the wake of Steffa Reis’ first visit back to Berlin, the city of her birth, in December 1988.
She had been invited by the Berlin Arts Council to hold a retrospective, and when returning to open that exhibition in November 1989, she experienced the dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall.
While strolling through the streets, childhood memories resurfaced: Sunday visits to her grandmother, sculpted marzipan confections in shop windows, picnics by the river with her uncle and then the uncertainty and premonition of the 1930s, the family fleeing Nazi Germany and the horrors of the Holocaust. These themes are implicitly reflected and reenacted in such works as Foreboding, Mysterious City, Ashes, and Destruction. The Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall, symbols of the tumultuous history of the city, are both recurring motifs.
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Foreboding I, 1990 -
Foreboding II, 1990 -
Foreboding III, 1990 -
Edge of Night I, 1989 -
Edge of Night II, 1989 -
Edge of Night III, 1989 -
Night Terrors, 1989 -
Mystical City II, 1989 -
Rail Tracks, 1989 -
Abstract (Wall III), 1989 -
Abstract (Wall IV), 1989 -
The Wall I, 1988 -
The Wall III, 1988 -
The Wall VI, 1988 -
The Wall VII, 1988 -
Despair II, 1989 -
Legends, 1989 -
Desolate Landscape, 1989 -
Brandenburg Gate, 1989-90 -
Destruction, 1989 -
Ashes, 1989 -
Ashes II, 1989
Collection of Ben Uri Art Gallery and Museum, London
Collection of Jewish Museum Berlin
Private Collection
Private Collection
Collection of Beit Lohamei Hagettaot
Collection of Jewish Museum Berlin
Collection of Jewish Museum Berlin
Collection of Jewish Museum Berlin
Private Collection
Hecht Museum, University of Haifa
