Woman with a Camera: Liselotte Grschebina
April 5 to June 28, 2009
Martin-Gropius-Bau
The Martin-Gropius-Bau presents the first retrospective of the avante-garde photographer Liselotte Grschebina (1908–1994). The exhibition features 100 photos taken by the relatively obscure artist in Germany and Palestine between 1929 and the 1940s.
Grschebina’s life was similar to other artists at the time who were living in Weimar Germany and trying to create work under the impending Nazi regime. Her work exemplifies the energizing spirit of cultural innovation during the time of the Weimar Republic, as well as the golden age of photography when artists were just beginning to see the potential with the medium.
Born in Germany, the artist was forced to leave her home in 1934 when she immigrated to Palestine and opened a studio in Tel-Aviv. Grschebina’s talent developed without major recognition until after her death, when a hidden body of work was discovered by her son in his apartment. In 2000, he gave the entire archive – including some 1,800 photographs – to the Israel Museum.
The current retrospective at the Martin-Gropius-Bau reveals the art of a young woman who in the period of the Weimar Republic was inspired by the New Sobriety (Neue Sachlichkeit). The Neue Sachlichkeit was distinguished by clarity of form and structure and the beauty of simple things. At the same time it had a documentary character, which concentrated on the essence of an object. Grschebina developed this style further in her new home in Palestine and integrated her work with that of the influential group of German photographers, who came with the fifth wave of immigration and settled mainly in Tel Aviv.
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