Magdalena Gross and Gela Seksztajn were different in almost every respect – their age, their background, their career paths. Their works, however, engage in a dialogue. They depict a world of harmony and coexistence.At Kordegarda, we experience a bygone presence preserved in subtle portraits of children, women, men, and animals. Regular visitors to the zoological garden, searching for some entertainment and rest, looking – together with us – at the “Cormorant”, the “Crane”, the “Elephant”, and other inhabitants of the Warsaw ZOO. The wildness of nature is harnessed here. Together with ours, the gazes of the portrayed, full of curiosity and solemnity, glide over the curved necks and tensed muscles of the animals. The watched and the watching are safe. It is a situation evoking the atmosphere of the Eden, where the biblical “leopard and young goat” may live safely side by side.Born in 1897, Magdalena Gross was an apprentice under Professor Tadeusz Breyer and Henryk Kuna. From them, she adopted faithfulness to nature, cohesion of form, and rhythm, and incorporated them into her art. Initially, she specialised in portraiture. She painted the likenesses, among others, of Józef Beck, Franciszek (Franc) Fiszer, Ignacy Dygas or Stanisław Staszic. While studying in Florence, she encountered contemporary sculpture and introduced Art Deco, as well as elements of Cubism, into her works. As she recalled herself, she felt burnt out as an artist around 1930. Then, a visit to the Zoological Garden and animal watching allowed her to develop her own unique style and theme. For the next 10 years, she was a very popular animalist, with numerous exhibitions, both in Poland and abroad, to her credit.There were few animalists in Poland at the time. This trend in art, which originated in France in the mid-1820s, was represented by just a handful of artists in Poland: Ludwik Pouget, Józef Klukowski, Jan Komaszewski, and Magdalena Gross. World War II left a particular mark on the fate of these eminent artists. They died prematurely and their works were irretrievably lost. The few preserved casts of Magdalena Gross’ works delight with their sophistication, synthesis of form, and elements with a geometric dimension.During the war, Magdalena Gross went into hiding on the “Aryan” side. She assumed the name of Gościmska and moved to the villa of the Żabiński family within the premises of the ZOO. She was nicknamed “Starling”, as according to Antonina Żabińska’s memories, “she did not give a hoot about her difficult situation, but lived with a song in her heart”. During the war, she married Maurycy Fraenkel (Paweł Zieliński), who was also in hiding. After the Warsaw Uprising, they moved to Lublin. There, the artist carved puppet heads for a puppet theatre. After a year, she returned to Warsaw together with her husband. She died in 1948, aged only 57.Gela Seksztajn (also known as Gele Seckstein) was much younger than Magdalena. Born in 1907 in a poor family – her father was a cobbler and her mother orphaned her quite early on in her childhood – she had to quickly start supporting herself. In spite of her work duties and poverty, she always tried to paint. The talented girl was discovered by Israel Joshua Singer, brother to the famous writer, and introduced to Henryk Kuna, who helped her obtain a scholarship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. She then spent thirteen years in Kraków, studying and working at a photographer’s shop as a retoucher.After returning to Warsaw, she was one of the artists gathered around the Association of Jewish Writers and Journalists. The 1930s in her life, just like in Magdalena’s, were filled with intensive work, collective exhibitions, and development of her own style. She specialised in watercolour and drawing. She painted realistic portraits, as well as still life and landscapes. The war brutally interrupted her promising career. Together with her husband, Izrael Lichtensztajn, and her daughter Margelit, born in 1940, she fought for survival every day. At the ghetto, Gela taught drawing, prepared exhibitions of her pupils’ works, and made costumes and scenery for theatre performances, including “The Seasons”, staged at the Femina Theatre in May 1942.Her husband, who worked with Emanuel Ringelblum, hid 309 of her artworks in a metal box, which became part of the Warsaw Ghetto Archives. Gela’s paintings and drawings constitute a unique collection in the Archives, as these include mainly written documents. Today, we can admire Gela Seksztajn’s works from the collection of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute.In 1999, the Emanuel Ringelblum Archives were listed on the Memory of the World Register by UNESCO. The Register includes the most treasured pieces of the world’s documentary heritage.The exact date of Gela Seksztajn’s death is not known, but it is believed that she and her daughter Margelit died during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.