Meet the artist Lenke Rothman in a personal and moving interview film, “Konstnärinnan Lenke Rothman” (The Artist Lenke Rothman, SVT, 1982). The film was recorded during Lenke Rothman’s time in New York in the 1980s, a formative period for her artistic practice. Note: The film is in Swedish and is shown with Swedish subtitles. Introduction by Mats Stjernstedt, Director at Malmö Konsthall.

Lenke Rothman (1929–2008) was a Hungarian-born Jewish artist and author. In 1945, at the age of sixteen, she arrived alone in Malmö on a Red Cross transport after being liberated from the Nazis’ Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Of ten family members, only two survived the Holocaust, Lenke and her eldest brother Alexander. Upon her arrival, Rothman was severely weakened and suffering from tuberculosis, spending her first six years in Sweden in convalescent homes, sanatoriums, and hospitals. During these years of illness, drawing and creating images became a way for her to pass the time and cope with her difficult life situation. Lenke Rothman chose to remain in Sweden, and in 1951, she began studying painting at Konstfack in Stockholm.

In the film “Konstnärinnan Lenke Rothman” she talks about how her experiences shaped her outlook on life, about preferring to live with pain rather than not live at all, and about the everyday observations and materials that, through her attentive gaze, find their way into her art.