The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 19, 2025
Reflection
1938, printed later
Location: Not on view
Did You Know?
Reflections are an important motif in the art of Surrealism.Description
In 1937, photographer Ellen Auerbach and her husband emigrated to the United States to flee Nazi persecution and threat of war in Europe. With a surrealistic use of dreamlike imagery, Auerbach arranges this picture so that her husband’s reflection falls onto window of a store in New York selling military uniforms. Was this a prefiguration of the coming World War? In October 1938, German troops invaded the Sudentenland; we do not know if this image was made before or after that event.- {{cite web|title=Reflection|url=false|author=Ellen Auerbach|year=1938, printed later|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2022.309