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1940s French Terracotta Bust by DEM

Born in Kiev (Russia) on February 18, 1889, Mrs. Erna Wolfson, born Davidoff and known under the artistic name of DEM, composed of the first letters of her first name, her maiden name and the first name of her husband.

Erna brilliantly completed her secondary studies (gold medal) in her hometown, and from a very young age she devoted herself to painting, her time was spent, also, in a beautiful property in the government of Kursk, in the center of Russia, and in numerous trips abroad, in italy, which she was particularly fond of as well as in France, in Holland, in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Switzerland in the Nordic countries, and much later, in Spain.

Her artistic studies took place in St Petersburg (Leningrad), in Paris at the Beaux-Arts and in Ateliers de la Rive-Gauche. Erna DEM devoted herself more to ceramics, where she applied her sense of color, without ever completely abandoning painting.

She did an internship at the Manufacture de Sèvres, where her assignment was extended well beyond the usual deadlines.

The works of DEM, who came to Paris after the Russian Revolution of 1917, were constantly exhibited in the major Parisian Salons and Exhibitions. She was a member of the Tuilieres Salons, the Autumn Salon, the Artists Decorators, etc. His particular showcase and his participation in that of the Manufacture de Sèvres, where his assignment extended well beyond the usual deadlines, as well as on the occasion of other artistic events, rewards and acquisitions on behalf of French and foreign states of its Ceramics; as well as always very favorable reviews in the main reviews and in other artistic and popular periodicals.

Works by Erna DEM have been selected by the French Legation in Guatemala, by the Museums of Modern Arts and Manufacture of Sèvres, in Prague, in Brooklyn (U.S.A.) in Jerusalem, etc. His works must also appear in the famous Hermitage Museum in Leningrad.

Arrested in July 1942 by the French police in Vichy on the orders of the German Occupation Authorities, she was sent with her husband to the Drancy concentration camp and deported to Auschwitz. No reliable information has shed light on his tragic destiny.

Reference number

15371

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