Let us gradually enter the world of Isaac Celnikier: disjointed processions of nameless beings who keep their eyes wide open until the gates of night; notebooks filled with unbearable, systematic "things seen": The Hostages of Bialystok, The Return of the Tortured, Arrival at Stutthof, Arrival at Birkenau, Arrival at Sachsenhausen, Selection Day, The Abyss... a haunting lament that can never be fully confused with the other convulsions of History and Time: Invasions, Crimes, Massacres, Revolutions, Terrors. Like Callot, Goya, Delacroix, and Picasso, Celnikier uses his art as a supreme recourse against Injustice and Oblivion. Reality, transfigured by painting, becomes absolute Memory.

Then comes the moment of calm, the passion for the tangible world, the exaltation, the joy: feminine portraits—Anne, Judith, Claire, Gladys, Patricia—in a baroque and colorful materiality midway between Vignon and Rembrandt; landscapes of Israel or the south of France—a powerful orogeny where the earth finally meets the sky...