Burning Synagogue 2—Narowla, Poland

Greta Schreyer (Vienna, Austria 1917—New York City 2005)

Oil on canvas, h. 24 x w. 30 in.

USA, 1999

Cincinnati Skirball Museum, gift of Linda Schreyer, 2015.47.1

Greta Schreyer was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of a master goldsmith. She too became a master goldsmith and studied art in Vienna and Paris before immigrating to the United States in 1938. In New York, she studied at the New School, The Art Students League, and at Pratt Institute. A prolific artist, she worked in oil, watercolor, and lithography. Near the end of her life, she painted a series of burning wooden synagogues, commemorating the distinctive massive synagogues of 18th-century Poland, destroyed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

A eulogy of sorts, the painting is a testament to physical and emotional loss, fragility, and vulnerability. With vivid and expressionistic color and brushwork, the artist suggests the structure of the synagogue—with stylized pillars and towers and a three-tiered roof—with bright flames encroaching on all sides. The artist commented that she had to live long enough to find the courage to commemorate these lost synagogues.

Narowla was a small town in southern White Russia on the banks of the Pripat’z, in today’s Gomel Region of Belarus. The synagogue in Narowla was built in the first half of the 18th century and was renovated several times during its history. At some point its wooden roof tiles were replaced with tin.