Bio, TV and Exhibitions
Follow the life of an artist who turned challenges to a quest for the essence of being, constantly sketching, painting, and producing works in various materials. She was an artist, published books, did stage design, produced book covers, worked with TV, taught, and was awarded a series of awards for her artistic output.
Birth
March 1929
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
Hungary / Sweden
Most used mediums
Painting / Writing
DEATH
November 2008
Lenke Rothman was born in Kiskunfélegyháza, Hungary, in 1929.
From 1944 to 1945 she was interned in Auschwitz, Guben and Bergen-Belsen, and was taken to Sweden in 1945 by the Red Cross. She spent the years 1945 to 1951 in hospitals in Sweden; attended art school in Stockholm from 1951 to 1955, and the Accademia di Belle Arti, Ravenna, Italy, in 1956 and 1957. She married Sivar Arnér in 1959; a son, Elias, was born in 1966. Member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Sweden since 1976. Exhibited art in sveral group shows in Sweden and abroad since 1951, and had her first one-person show in 1960, followed by many more. Large retrospective exhibition at the Swedish Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm, 1976, and later a second one at the Dunker Art Museum, Helsingborg, 2008.
Stage designer for the Stockholm National Theatre production of Strindberg’s Easter, 1981. Program on creativity for Swedish television, 1979, and television program with Andy Warhol in 1981. Represented at the Modern Museum of Art, National Museum and Royal Swedish Library in Stockholm, the University of Uppsala, and in numerous private collections in Sweden, U.S.A., Finland, London and Paris.
Swedish artist in residence in 1981 at P.S.1 in New York, and in 1984 at the Djerassi Foundation, Woodside, California. Author of Quality of Life, 1981, and OK OK NO New York, 1984, both published by Kalejdoskop, Ahus, Sweden.
She died of leukemia in 2008.
TV Interview with Lenke (In Swedish)
TV program with meeting between Lenke and Andy Warhol
Publications by Lenke
Quality of Life (1980)
- Publisher: Kalejdoskop, Åhus, Sweden
- LIBRIS-ID:7750324
- ISBN:918555233X
- Description: This book combines Rothman’s writings and artworks, some of which are stitched and made of found materials. It reflects her exploration of life, memory, and healing.
Reviews:
An article in Umbrella reviewed Rothman’s book “Quality of Life,” noting its combination of writing and artworks, some of which are stitched and made of found materials.
Goodreads listing: Quality of Life
Ok Ok No New York (1984)
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Co-author: Tana Ross
- Publisher: Kalejdoskop, Åhus, Sweden
- ISBN: 91-85552-74-7
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Description:
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A bilingual (English and Swedish) book featuring black and white images capturing “traces of life” in New York City, reflecting Rothman’s experiences during her stay in 1981.
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Availability:
- Available from Kalejdoskop and on Amazon and AbeBooks
Regn (1990, 1993, 2024)
Publisher:
- Gidlund, 1990
- En bok för alla, 1993
- ISBN: 91-7843-027-5 • 91- 7448-752-3
- Faethon, 2024
- ISBN: 9789189943070
- ISBN: 9789189943070
Description:
Continues Rothman’s exploration of personal and collective memory through art and text. Regn (Eng. Rain) was a book Lenke carried and worked on for many years. In it, she conveys thoughts from and insights into three cultures: Jewish, Hungarian and Swedish. Rain is not a diary, although the form may resemble one, as each section contains several time layers and movements in space. It conveys a European experience in the past and today. In »Day 49« she writes: »As the rain hits the window, the thoughts, the images, hit the inner rooms. Bounce, hit, sink and return.« What we carry occupies us throughout our lives and Lenke Rothman sees connecting the past with the present as a necessity.
- Regn was first published in 1990. The edition from 2024 has a foreword by Rebecka Katz Thor.
Lenke Rothman (1995)
Co-author/introduction: Torsten Ekbom
Publisher: Arena
- ISBN: 9178430747
Description: A comprehensive overview of Rothman’s life and work, providing insights into her artistic journey.
Stygn (2001)
Publisher: Gidlunds förlag
- ISBN: 9178443504
Description: The title translates to “Stitches,” indicating a focus on themes of repair and healing, consistent with Rothman’s artistic motifs.
Lenke Rothman: Att hopfoga den sönderfallande världen / Mending a broken world (2019)
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Publisher: Sörmlands Museum
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Description: This publication accompanied an exhibition of the same name, showcasing Rothman’s work that deals with themes of fragmentation and restoration.
- ISBN: 9789187794683
Life as cloth / Lenke Rothman (2025)
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- Katz Thor, Rebecka, 1982- (editor)
- Lagomarsino, Runo (editor)
- Stjernstedt, Mats (editor)
- Cesarec, Angela (editor)
- Description: This publication accompanied an exhibition of the same name. See below for photos from the exhibition.
- ISBN 9783964360830
- Published: Berlin : BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE, [2024]
- English 159 sidor
- Series: Malmö konsthalls katalog ; No. 252
Chronological overview of notable exhibitions featuring the works of Lenke Rothman from 1950 to the present:
1950s–1960s
1951: Participated in “Foreign Artists in Sweden” at Konstnärshuset, Stockholm.
1960: First solo exhibition at Sturegalleriet, Stockholm, curated by Majalisa Bringert.
1961: Solo exhibition at Nutida Konst, Uppsala.
1962: Exhibited at Galleri 54, Gothenburg; also in 1964 and 1973.
1963: Exhibition at Gröna Paletten, Stockholm; also in 1965 and 1991.
1964: Solo exhibition at Oxelösund City Hall during its inauguration.
1970s
1968: Exhibited at Galleri Burén, Stockholm; also in 1970 and 1974.
1975: Exhibition at Galleri Anders Tornberg, Lund; also in 1979.
1976: Retrospective at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, curated by Carlo Derkert.
1978: Exhibition at Galerie Aronowitsch, Stockholm; also in 1980, 1984, and 1991.
1979: Launched the traveling exhibition “Together with Elias” through Riksutställningar, showcased across Scandinavia until 1989.
1980s
1981: Exhibited at Elise Meyer Inc Gallery, New York, during her residency at PS1.
1986: Solo exhibitions at Judah L. Magnes Museum (Berkeley, CA), Goldman Fine Arts Gallery (Washington, D.C.), and The Jewish Quarter Inc. Gallery (Beverly Hills, CA).
1987: Solo exhibitions at the Jewish Museum (New York), Gallery Augusta (Suomenlinna, Finland), Ernst Museum (Budapest), and Gallery Nyhagen (Orust, Sweden).
1989–1990: “Yttringar av liv” (“Expressions of Life”) exhibited at Malmö Konsthall and Göteborgs Konsthall.
1990s
1995: “Spår” (“Traces”), a sculpture originally created for the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm, later installed at the Gothenburg Museum of Art.
2000s
2008: Retrospective “Gåvor = Gifts: 1948–2008” at Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg.
2010s
2015: Participated in “Varning för känsliga människor” (“Warning for Sensitive People”) at Ystads Konstmuseum.
2018–2019: “Att hopfoga den sönderfallande världen” (“Mending a Broken World”) at Sörmlands Museum, Nyköping.
2020s
2023: “Den röda tråden” (“The Red Thread”) at Art Space, Södertörn University, Huddinge.
2024–2025: “Liv som tyg” (“Life as Cloth”) at Malmö Konsthall, from September 21, 2024, to January 19, 2025.
Additional Information
Alternative Biography
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Arrival to Sweden, with the boat "Rönnskär".
Documentation on Lenke by the Swedish Red Cross
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Photos of Lenke with colleagues
Photos published with kind curtesy of David Aronowitsch.
In the gallery of William Aronowitsch, Lenke's gallerist during many years, at the event of an exhibition there of Lenke in 1978, together with Peter Freudenthal, Thore Jederby, Roland Kempe and Olle Baertling.
In the villa of William Aronowitsch, together with him, Lenkes brother Alexander Rothman, Williams wife Eva Aronowitsch, Lars Englund and his wife Yvonne Möller, Susan Weil and her husband Bernhard "Bernie" Kirschenbaum, and Kjell Ohlin with his wife.
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Master Thesis on Lenke
by Malin Hedenäs, 2019, on Lenke and her language
Abstract:
In this essay called Searching for Language at the Frontiers of Pain. Lenke Rothman and possibilities and limitations of languages in front of phenomenon of pain, I investigate how experiences of pain and suffering is communicated through four artworks by artist Lenke Rothman (1929-2008). Having survived the Holocaust, she felt, like many other, that testimony of pain and suffering was impossible within the limits of language.
Through a semiotic model for analysis, using Rothmans experiences of both physical and psychological pain as context for interpretation, I discuss how the artworks as visual instead of textual can communicate experience when language fails. With a theoretical starting point in phenomenological theories of pain as something that escapes conceptual definition, I show how the symbolic level in the artworks is able to expand meaning when it comes to the phenomenon of pain. It happens in the gap between words as describing an artworks as showing.
Photos from notable exhibitions after 2010
Sörmlands Museum
Att hopfoga den sönderfallande världen ("Mending a broken world")
24 Nov 2018 - 18 Aug 2019
ArtSpace Södertörn
Den röda tråden ("The Red Thread")
21 Sep – 9 Nov, 2023
