The high quality execution and honest charm of Krinitz’s body of intricate memory embroideries give unique and powerful testimony… Simply put, Esther Krinitz’s work ranks among the very best.
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Rebecca Hoffberger, Founder and Director of American Visionary Art Museum
FABRIC OF SURVIVAL
The Art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz
In 1977, at the age of 50, Esther Nisenthal Krinitz began creating works of fabric art to tell her story of survival. Trained as a seamstress, but with no training in art, she ultimately created 36 remarkable fabric pictures of strong, vivid images and folk-art realism, meticulously stitching the narrative of her story beneath each picture.
We invite you to view all 36 of Esther’s works as both still images and videos that explore each piece in intricate detail. The videos, along with an introductory video, are narrated by Esther's daughter, Bernice Steinhardt. You can view individual videos by clicking on each image in the gallery below, or view the full video tour here.
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To see stitching details of sections of various images, please visit our Details Gallery
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Story Timeline: Before the War (1-6) | Nazi Occupation (7-17) | Separation (18-21) | Seeking Refuge (22-25) | Hiding in Plain Sight (26-29) | Liberation (30-32) | America (33-36)
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Click on each image to read the captions, expand, and download the images. At the top of each page you can navigate between images using the directional arrows.
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All images © Art and Remembrance 2021