Persona

Newman, Marketa, 1918-2000

Marketa Newman was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1918. She was married Arthur ("Bobek") Neumann (later changed to Newman), and had two children, Karel (changed to Charles or Chuck) and Eva. She and her family (at the time husband and son) were taken to the "model concentration camp", Terezin, in 1942. The family was not deported to Auschwitz due to the fact that Arthur was the only oral surgeon in the camp and the SS needed one for "decoration" purposes. Kajo (11 months when they arrived) was one of only 100 children who survived, out of 15,000 children who passed through Terezin. The family emigrated to Canada in 1949, first staying in Toronto, and settled in Saskatoon in September 1949. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan (English and French Literature) in 1962; and a Bachelor of Library Science degree from the University of Toronto in 1964. From 1964 until her retirement in 1985 she worked for the University of Saskatchewan Library in the cataloguing, acquisitions, and collection development departments. She was the author of Biographical Dictionary of Saskatchewan Artists - Women Artists (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1990) and Biographical Dictionary of Saskatchewan Artists - Men Artists (Saskatoon: Fifth House, 1994). In 1997, largely in recognition of the dictionaries, she received an honorary degree from University of Saskatchewan; a Melva J. Dwyer Award from ARLIS Canada (Art Libraries Society of North America); and was one Saskatoon's Women of Distinction (YWCA). She died on 6 November 2000. When she died, she was nearing completion of a biographical dictionary of Saskatchewan folk artists.