Imprisoned

In September 1979, at age fifty-six, writer and artist Arturo Benvenuti fueled up his motor home and set forth on what he knew would be an emotional journey. His plan—his own Viae Crucis—was to meet with as many former prisoners of Nazi-fascist concentration camps as he could. He wanted not only to learn their stories, but to learn from their stories.He met with dozens of survivors from Auschwitz, Terezín, Mauthausen-Gusen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Gonars, Monigo, Renicci, Banjica, Ravensbrück, Jasenovac, Belsen, and Gurs. Many of these men and women shared their memories with Benvenuti along with artwork they’d created during their internment with pencil, ink, and charcoal.After four decades of research, Benvenuti presented these original black-and-white pieces in Imprisoned. This stunning collection provides visuals that oftentimes even the most eloquent words and sentences cannot convey.In his foreword, chemist, writer, and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi highlighted the importance of these reproductions, stating, “some have the immediate power of art; all have the raw power of the eye that has seen and that transmits its indignation.”

“A book that even today remains truthful and intense, a challenging work created over the course of several years ‘free of empty words. Free of rhetoric.’” —Il Fatto Quotidiano"A visual testament to the horrors of Nazi cruelty is revived a generation after it first appeared. . . . Such works are beyond the now-banal pop depictions that increasingly displace firsthand witness. Collections like this may help inform a growing generation that knows nothing of the Holocaust or its lessons. . . . Stark renderings that go beyond simple aesthetic judgment produced by some of the artists who perished in concentration camps." —Kirkus Reviews, “A book that even today remains truthful and intense, a challenging work created over the course of several years ‘free of empty words. Free of rhetoric.’” —Il Fatto Quotidiano"A visual testament to the horrors of Nazi cruelty is revived a generation after it first appeared. . . . Such works are beyond the now-banal pop depictions that increasingly displace firsthand witness. Collections like this may help inform a growing generation that knows nothing of the Holocaust or its lessons. . . . Stark renderings that go beyond simple aesthetic judgment produced by some of the artists who perished in concentration camps." —Kirkus Reviews

Arturo Benvenuti was born in 1923 in the northeastern Italian province of Treviso. He is a poet, painter, art critic and scholar, combining his social and environmental commitment with the promotion of art and photography exhibits around the world. He resides in Oderzo, Italy.Primo Levi was born in 1919. He was an Italian Jewish chemist and award-winning writer. In 1944, he was sent to Auschwitz, where he remained until liberation in 1945. He is best known for If This is a Man, published in 1947. He passed away in 1987.