Hélène Carroll's The Alphabet Paintings to be exhibited in Israel

Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History is honoured that Masterton artist Hélène Carroll will exhibit The Alphabet Paintings in Israel, at The Ghetto Fighters' House – Itzhak Katzenelson Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum – the world’s first Holocaust museum and the first of its kind: founded by Holocaust survivors. 

The Alphabet Paintings are held in the Aratoi collection.

Hélène Carroll's The Alphabet Paintings

Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, Western Galilee, Israel

1 April – 1 August 2020

Hélène Carroll is also honoured to be invited to attend the Yom Hashoah ceremony at the Museum on 21 April, Holocaust Remembrance Day; this year marks 75 years since the liberation of the camps in Germany and in German-occupied Poland.

The Alphabet Paintings contrast the child's alphabet, something structured and unchanging ( 'Aa is for Apple...' ) with the chaos and horror of the Holocaust ('...and also for Auschwitz'), a shadow under which the artist has lived her life as the child of two Holocaust survivors.

Born in Paris in 1947, Hélène moved to New Zealand in 1949.  She has held three solo exhibitions at Aratoi: Thinking About Matisse (2012), Recent Work (2017) and The Alphabet Paintings (2018/2019).