Lisa Marei Schmidt - Böcker

Art collector, patron and arbiter – Hanna Bekker vom Rath (1893–1983) was a trailblazer for the artistic avant-garde and one of the most important female personalities in Germany during the pre-war and post-war modern periods. She was a friend of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Alexej von Jawlensky, Ida Kerkorius and Paul Klee. This lavishly illustrated volume provides a lively picture of a remarkable woman.A refuge for modernism – Hanna Bekker vom Rath promoted the art of the Brücke artists and the avant-garde in a variety of ways. Even during the National Socialist era her “Blue House” in Hofheim served as an intimate space for exchanges and exhibitions for the artists who were her friends. After the war she founded the Kunstkabinett in Frankfurt, the city’s first postwar gallery, and she undertook numerous international journeys on behalf of modern art. The texts and images sketch a multi-faceted portrait of an “ambassador of art” and document the influence of her achievements.

In the art of Irma Stern, motifs from her South African homeland meet the expressionism of the Brücke artists. In the interwar period she was celebrated in Berlin for her “exotic” paintings, and later became a prominent artist in South Africa. This richly illustrated volume focuses on her highly expressive portraits and addresses questions regarding the contexts in which the works were created and how they are seen today.The German–South African artist Irma Stern (1894–1966) was a well-known figure in the Berlin art scene after the First World War, until she was forced to leave Germany forever in 1933 due to Nazi persecution of the Jews. While marginalized as a woman and threatened by antisemitism, she was also a beneficiary of South Africa’s apartheid regime. Her complex body of work was shaped both by emancipation and by cultural appropriation.