About the Artist....

All the paintings in this collection were done by Sofia Guttentag  Davidson.  She was born in 1893 at the end of the 19th century.  She was born to a family that was affluent, scholarly and secular.

Sofia was a very gifted artist from a very young age.  Her parents recognized this, they encouraged her to study so she was sent to study art in Switzerland and Germany and eventually became a professor of art in Poland. This was quite an unusual, or rather a quite remarkable achievement, not only because she was a woman, but more so because she was a Jewish woman.

....And the Daughter & Granddaughter who kept her story alive

Hanna Pankowsky, Davidson's daughter, also endured, persevered, and survived the Holocaust, all thanks to the relentlessness and determination of her mother, who refused to give up, protecting her children's lives from the seemingly inevitable  tragedy surrounding the world at the time. The collection represents Davidson's postwar work. The pieces were recently restored by the efforts of Sofia's granddaughter and Hanna's daughter, Helen Pankowsky. They can be displayed in various configurations to tell different stories, all sharing the theme of "Darkness into Light.” The sub-collections within the overall collection, represent very different subjects which can be presented to tell a variety of stories, representing one woman’s perspective of the world and the impact of the events of that period had on her (and her family’s) personal journey.