Agony in the Garden: Adam & Eve Expelled from the Garden of Eden Painting

Born in Vienna in 1925, Charlotte Lichtblau came to the United States in 1940 with her parents and sister. She lived and worked in New York City from 1953. Following her emigration to America, she returned repeatedly to Austria, primarily to Vienna and to her childhood summer home in Altaussee, in Austria’s Salzkammergut region. For more than five decades, Lichtblau exhibited her works in galleries, museums, universities, and churches in New York City and throughout the United States. She has had two major career retrospective exhibitions in Austria, one at the Palais Palffy in Vienna (1994) and the second in the Pfarrheim Arts Center in Bad Aussee, near Altaussee (2002). For the artist, the discipline of painting is a way of exploring, expressing and communicating the passion of human existence. A significant portion of her work is focused on biblical themes, most notably the Passion of Christ. Here, the visual transformation into imagery addresses familiar religious themes internally and directly. While her paintings of religious subjects are boldly contemporary, they honor both the history of ecclesiastical imagery and the artistic traditions of German Expressionist painting. A planned career retrospective in 2000 led to the publication of Origin and Transformation: Life and Art of the Painter Charlotte Lichtblau by Albert Lichtblau, who is no relation to the artist. Her paintings were published in Fr. Patrick Ryan’s books "When I Survey The Wondrous Cross: Scriptural Reflections for Lent" (1989) and "The Coming of Our God: Scriptural Reflections for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany" (1999). For more than four years, she had drawings published weekly in America Magazine. Lichtblau was an art critic, as well, writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Herald Tribune, Arts Magazine, and other publications. Her collected reviews are archived at the Smithsonian Institution. Charlotte Lichtblau’s work is represented in museums and private collections across the United States and Europe. Charlotte Lichtblau died in New York City, December, 2013.