# data[].attributes.body
Fayga Ostrower was born Fayga Perla Krakowski on September 14, 1920 into a Jewish family in Łódź, Poland. In 1921, Ostrower and her family moved to Elberfeld and Barmen in Germany, where Ostrower attended primary and secondary schools. In the early 1930’s, Fayga Ostrower and her family sought refuge in Belgium, and finally emigrated to Brazil in 1934, where they took up residence in Nilópolis. Ostrower was born Jewish, and her and her family wanted to get out of Germany before the second world war. Fayga liked to draw from her early youth, and during her trip by boat to Brazil, she drew portraits of her surroundings, the passengers, the crew, and much more which have survived to this day (see Figure 2) (Falbel).

In Brazil, Ostrower began work as a secretary while studying art at the Fine Arts Association. Ostrower spoke five different languages; German, French, English, Spanish and Portuguese. In 1946, she attended design classes at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation’s Brazilian Society of Fine and Graphic Arts, where she studied metal and wood engraving, and art history. She had many authority figures and tutors throughout this time such as Axel Leskoschek, Tomás Santa Rosa, Carlos Oswald and Anna Levy. In 1955, Ostrower spent a year in New York through a Fulbright Scholarship, engraving under the tutelage of Stanley Hayter. She had many group and solo exhibitions throughout her career, such as the Pan-American Union in Washington in 1955, the San Francisco Fine Arts Museum in 1957, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1959, and the Chicago Fine Arts Institute in 1960 (Falbel).

In 1941, Ostrower married marxist activist Heinz Ostrower, who both became citizens of Brazil. They had a son named Carl Robert, who was born in 1949, and a daughter named Anna Leonor who was born in 1952. Fayga Ostrower died on September 13, 2001, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2002, the Fayga Ostrower Institute was founded in Rio de Janeiro in memory of Ostrower. The Institute shows her works and documents, and is also a school that provides creative, fine art and interdisciplinary study. Fayga Ostrower’s works are to be found in many museums throughout the world, among them are the Modern Art Museums in Rio de Janeiro and New York, the Fine Arts Museum in Philadelphia, the Contemporary Art Museum in São Paulo, the Library of Congress in Washington, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Albertina Museum in Vienna (Pluta).

# data[].attributes.body
In the beginning of Ostrower’s art career, until about 1953, her work shows the impact of expressionism and an interest in social themes, influenced by the work of Käthe Kollwitz. She was awarded prizes for her figure artwork in exhibitions in 1948 and 1950. She then abandoned the depiction of figures, and began to work with abstract designs, which aroused criticism and was strongly rejected by art critics and her colleagues. Paul Cézanne’s works had a great influence on Ostrower, and it was due to him that she took on an abstract style. Inspired by his Cubism style and abstract art she began to move away from figurative and socially engaged art (Almeida). Ostrower was documented for once saying:

“Between 1950 and 1954, I slowly began to change my style – perhaps I was searching for something different. At the time I received two books about Cézanne as a gift (…) Discovering Cézanne took me four years, I tried to understand him, until thanks to him I understood Cubism. I never tried to be a Cubist. My journey led me directly to abstract art” (Pluta).

Even though the style of abstract was looked down upon, Fayga did not back down on her decision. In 1954, which was a very important year for Ostrower, she held her first abstract individual exhibition and started teaching art theory at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio. Ostrower was connected to the idea of expressionism, but contemplated what that meant in a different context like Brazil, with its specific landscape, light, colour and abstract thinking (Poppel).

# data[].attributes.body
Epiphany by Fayga Ostrower (See Figure 1) is a 76.5 x 56.5 cm watercolour painting on arches paper done in 1999. This painting is a perfect example of the style change the Ostrower made after 1953. Ostrower changed her style from figure illustrations to light and vibrant watercolour brush strokes. She usually painted with bright colours that she considered to be beautiful, and in Epiphany, she did exactly that.

In Epiphany, the eye goes directly towards the centre of the painting, at the large cyan space and light lime and amber lines. The colours, contrast, and value that Ostrower chose make the painting seem as if it was burned. The texture of the lines look charred, which created a burning paper effect, and reveals a smooth ocean-like background underneath. The painting is very abstract and open for a lot of interpretation. Ostrower loved that idea, and wanted to create art that involved a discussion. Fayga Ostrower also argued that art was a universal and vital language for humans. She was very perturbed that it became an elitist demonstration and an object that most considered a luxury (Almeida). She once said in an interview:

"Everyone seeks beauty, harmony; this search does not depend on social class” (Almeida).

She wanted to create the beauty that she mentioned for everyone, and chose to make her paintings, including Epiphany, an object that was always seen as beautiful. You can now go to faygaostrower.org.br/a-artista/biografia-resumida and see images of all her artwork free of charge.

# data[].attributes.body
These images were included on the Fayga Ostrower Institution website. The Fayga Ostrower Institution holds the Copyright to these images.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Fayga Ostrower, Oceano (Triptych), 1994, Watercolor on Arches paper,
76.0 x 171.0 cm

# data[].attributes.body
2. Fayga Ostrower, Andenken Feiga Krakowski, 1934, Graphite on paper, 13.0 x 20.0 cm (This is from a notebook that is a record of the trip made by Fayga, at the age of fourteen, and her family when coming to Brazil to take up residence.)

# data[].attributes.body
3. Fayga Ostrower, Epiphany, 1999, Watercolor on Arches paper, 76.5 x 56.5 cm

# data[].attributes.body
4. Fayga Ostrower, Study for Stamping, 1945, Gouache on paper, 50.0 x 65.0 cm

# data[].attributes.body
5. Fayga Ostrower, Illustration for the book Fontamara XIV, 1945, Black linoleum on rice paper,  15 x 10 cm

# data[].attributes.body
Figure 1. Ostrower, Fayga, Oceano (Triptych), 1994, Fayga Ostrower Institution, https://faygaostrower.org.br/acervo/aquarelas.

Figure 2. Ostrower, Fayga, Andenken Feiga Krakowski, 1934, Fayga Ostrower Institution, https://faygaostrower.org.br/acervo/desenhos.

Figure 3. Ostrower, Fayga, Epiphany, 1999, Fayga Ostrower Institution, https://faygaostrower.org.br/acervo/aquarelas.

Figure 4. Ostrower, Fayga, Study for Stamping, 1945, Fayga Ostrower Institution, https://faygaostrower.org.br/acervo/matrizes.

Figure 5. Ostrower, Fayga, Illustration for the book Fontamara XIV, 1945, Fayga Ostrower Institution, https://faygaostrower.org.br/acervo/ilustracoes.

© Copyright Fayga Ostrower heirs

# data[].attributes.body
Almeida, Carla. “ Fayga Ostrower, a Life Open to Sensitivity and Intellect. Translated by Hannah Latimer, SciELO, Oct. 2006, www.scielo.br/scielo.php?Script=sci_arttext.

Falbel, Anat and Nachman Falbel. “Fayga Ostrower.” Jewish Women's Archive, 27 Feb. 2009, jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ostrower-fayga.

“Fayga Ostrower.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Nov. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayga_Ostrower.

National Gallery of Art. “Fayga Ostrower: Brazilian, 1920 - 2001.” Artist Info, 2020, www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.5141.html.

Pluta, Aleksandra. “Fayga Perla Ostrower.” Translated by Zuzanna Wisniewska, Culture.pl, Sept. 2015, culture.pl/en/artist/fayga-perla-ostrower.

Poppel, Sarah. “All Creative Being: Interview with Anna Bella Geiger.” Artl@s Bulletin, vol. 3, no. Issue 2 Highways of the South: Latin American Art Networks, 2014, pp. 98–109, https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=artlas.

“Página Inicial.” Translated by Hannah Latimer, Instituto Fayga Ostrower, 2002, faygaostrower.org.br/a-artista/biografia-resumida.