Adolf Frankl Gallery

Today we had a free day which some of us had the opportunity to go and meet up with Thomas Frankl at his art gallery of his late father’s work. It was a truly great experience because he talked us through his father’s paintings. From the early 60’s his father began painting pictures about the Holocaust and the Nazis. Although he survived the Holocaust, he was unable to express his experiences for a long time after. Thomas said that his father, Adolf, was lucky that he had the ability to express himself through art, because he was not able to do the same with words, and by holding in the emotions life might have been that much harder for him after the Holocaust. His pictures were beautiful and powerful, they told the stories of his home town Bratislava, Slovakia and how the Nazis came in. It was really interesting how he used so many bright colors in some of his works, because it is such a dark topic, but at the same time there were paintings that were bright in some places and then when the Nazis were portrayed it would get darker and darker. For me, art was not something of interest, but with artists like Adolf, there is more to art, it is not just something to hang up, but it really has meaning and emotion. Especially considering the fact that this was his only form of expressing his emotions from the Holocaust. Thomas said that they did have the chance to film him later in life so that his grandkids and all others would be able to see it, but I think that was in 1989, so these paintings become even more powerful in my mind because this was all he could do to tell what happened.

He was very talented in this sense, because although he painted about a certain theme and had a definite style, they were all so different and successful in telling his story. The gallery was a small little place that was located in the Judenplatz, so it was a great location considering it’s topic, and we were very lucky to have Thomas show us his father’s works and share his life with us.