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Else Lasker-Schüler

The Pictures
21 January - 1 May 2011

Else Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945) was not only a brilliant poet, but she also created an extensive body of drawings. The exhibition 'Else Lasker-Schüler - Die Bilder/The Pictures' is the largest exhibition to date that pays tribute to her as a fine artist. Organized in conjunction with the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt am Main, the show contains known works that first appeared in the magazine 'Der Sturm', as well as several sheets now on display for the first time ever.

Else Lasker-Schüler was closely associated with the city of Berlin. Born the daughter of a banker in Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Lasker-Schüler went on to become the leading figure in Expressionist literature, publishing her first poems in Berlin in 1899. In 1903 she married the writer Georg Lewin in Berlin, and it was her he had to thank for coming up with his pseudonym, Herwarth Walden. Walden became a central figure in the avant-garde thanks to both his magazine, 'Der Sturm' ('The Storm'), which first appeared in 1910, and his gallery of the same name. Else Lasker-Schüler also helped shape the Berlin bohemian scene of the 1920s. Among her most important friends and admirers were Franz Marc, Karl Kraus and Gottfried Benn. In April 1933 Else Lasker-Schüler emigrated after having been awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize just one year earlier, settling first in Zurich, before moving on to Palestine in 1939, where she died in 1945. She was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

The catalogue to the exhibition contains all drawings the artist ever made in what amounts to an illustrated catalogue raisonné. This index of Else Lasker-Schüler's pictorial works now means her oeuvre is accessible to the public for the first time in its entirety.