LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- Twenty years after witnessing the violent threats and actions of the Nazi regime in Europe, a local artist began to express her resurfacing memories and tribulations through her work.

The Rider University Art Gallery and the Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust/Genocide Resource Center at Rider University are co-sponsoring an exhibition of this work by Lilli Gettinger, a Princeton artist who lived in Germany during the early years of the Nazi party's rise to power. The exhibit is funded in part through a grant from the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission/New Jersey State Council on Art.

The exhibition, titled "Memory Transformed: Reliefs and Pastels," will allow viewers to experience the emotions and feelings of an artist who witnessed the hate and destruction of the Holocaust. Although the relief sculptures and pastel drawings do not depict specific events, they are considered by Gettinger as an expression of the "ambiance of the Nazi era."

The exhibit will run from Tuesday, March 25 through Sunday, April 20, 1997 in the Art Gallery, located in the Student Center on Rider's Lawrenceville campus.

Gettinger grew up in pre-World War II Germany, including the first six years of the Nazi regime. After becoming a refugee in 1938, she found herself on the run from Nazi advances in Europe, which took her through Scandinavia, the Soviet Union, Spain, and the Dominican Republic. She was eventually granted an immigration visa to the United States in the spring of 1941.

Upon entering the U.S., Gettinger studied in New York with famous sculptor Alexander Archipenko, and at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC with Heinz Warnecke.

She has participated in both solo and group exhibitions, and has taught at Artworks (formerly Princeton Art Association) in Princeton, NJ, the Workshop Center of the Arts in Washington DC, and the Art Center at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The exhibit is free and open to the public. An informal presentation and discussion session by the artist will be held on Thursday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Student Center's Fireside Lounge. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday through Sunday, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Rider University's Lawrenceville campus is located five miles south of Princeton and three miles north of Trenton on Route 206 in Lawrence Township, NJ. The campus is one-half mile south of exit 7A of Interstate 95.