ABSTRACT
Our study of Daghani, Salomon and Nussbaum has illuminated the concept of painting under pressure in a double sense. Biographically, the lives of all three artists were in danger. They were victims of racial persecution, creating works of art under the most adverse circumstances, fully aware of the threat of deportation and death. Artistic activity in exile has been defined as a ‘difficult and ultimately dangerous act, a statement of defiance that … of ten brought about a transformed sense of artistic identity’. 301 Painting was also under pressure in an aesthetic sense for artists aware that traditional easel painting was no longer commensurate with events. How could the art of oil painting possibly do justice to the catastrophe that was engulfing Europe? They responded to the circumstances by developing new visual forms, compelling in their narrative momentum and anguished in their existential register.
