Thornflower has its roots deep in the artist’s childhood in Prague (which she left in 1939) in happy memories of her grandmothers’ home “Das Rosel Haus (the house of rose)” and in the death of her grandmother in Treblinka in 1942.

It is a reflection not only on the Nazi Holocaust but on “man’s inhumanity” across history, representing, in Charlotte Mayer’s own words “an urgent wish to make a sculpture uniting opposing elements of thorns and flowers, to speak of reconciliation, peace and oneness”.

Roses and thorns are never far apart in life, but it is the beauty of the rose that we remember.*

*from a signboard next to the artwork