Look at Me!
Women’s Portraits
from the 1920s
The selection on display here reveals different practices in portrait photography in Berlin during the 1920s. Intriguing contrasts emerge between conventional and modernist portraits from commercial studios and examples of experimental photography and collage.
The display draws on portraits of women commissioned between 1920 and 1930 and later used by Lothar Brieger (1879–1949) for his treatise on “The Contemporary Female Face” (1930). The art historian argued in his book that the faces of professional women were changing and he included 71 plates illustrating contemporary celebrities and occupations to support his case. While photographers were shooting multifaceted portraits of the New Woman, artists with critical views of society were experimenting with photomontage and collage and inventing poses for the camera. The result is a diverse, modern, creative and above all self-assured picture of women in the Weimar Republic.
Artists: Marta Astfalck-Vietz,
Marta Astfalck-Vietz and Heinz Hajek-Halke, Steffi Brandl, Atelier Gerstenberg (formerly Dührkoop), Raoul Hausmann,
Carry & Nini Hess, Hannah Höch,
Richard Kauffmann, Frieda Riess and Cami Stone