Artist Index: Jacobi, Lotte

Portrait of the artist Josef Scharl (1896-1954). 1939. Vintage gelatin silver print. 24,5 x 19,5 cm. Dedicated, dated and signed by Scharl in ink in lower right corner; annotated in pencil on the verso.

Corners minimally bumped, minimal oxidation mirroring in lower edge, traces of previous framing on the verso, otherwise in very good condition.

Portrait of a young woman. 1930s. Vintage gelatin silver print. 24 x 18 cm. Mounted to board (slight traces of use), signed by the photographer in pencil below image on mount.

Minimal mirroring in lower edge, otherwise in good condition.

Portrait of the writer Walter von Molo (1880-1958). 1930. Vintage gelatin silver print. 22,1 x 16 cm. Photographer's/copyright stamps, number stamp and annotated in pencil on the verso.

This portrait of Walter von Molo by Lotte Jacobi is comparable to her portrait of Käthe Kollwitz, which was taken around the same time (1929). Both were members of the Academy of Arts in Berlin (Molo was chairman of the literary section). Until the early 1930s Molo was one of the most popular German authors. During the Third Reich he went into an inner emigration and resigned from all honorary positions. After 1945 he was not able to reestablish his previous success. – Corners bumped, a few rubbed spots, minimal oxidation mirroring in lower edge, otherwise in good condition.

The actress Dina Gralla (1905-1994). 1929. Vintage gelatin silver print. 22,8 x 16,7 cm. Atelier Jacobi, Joachimsthaler Str. 5 stamp and annotated in ink on the verso.
Some retouched spots, corners slightly bumped, otherwise in good condition.

"Albert Einstein in Leather Jacket, Princeton, New Jersey". 1938. Vintage gelatin silver print. 25 x 19,7 cm. Signed by the photographer in pencil in lower left.

Stronger oxidation mirroring in dark areas and edges, indentation spot in upper right.

Lit.: Marion Beckers/Elisabeth Moortgat. Atelier Lotte Jacobi - Berlin, New York. Berlin 1997, ill. p. 157.

Photogenic abstraction; Vulture. 1946/printed later. 2 photo postcards. Each circa 13,3 x 8,7 cm. Each signed by the photographer in pencil below the image in the margin.

Encouraged by Leo Katz, in the early 1940s Lotte Jacobi began experimenting with making photographs without a camera. It was Katz who coined the term "Photogenics" for these renditions of paths of light and for him these images were true "original" art objects, devoid of the reproducible nature of normal photographs. Jacobi's photogenics follow the new concepts in the visual arts of the time and were included in such avantgarde exhibitions as In and Out of Focus in 1948 and Abstraction in Photography in 1951, both at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as well as in the second Subjektive Fotografie exhibition in 1954 in Saarbrücken. – A few light pressure marks, otherwise in very good condition. With: Self-portrait of Lotte Jacobi. 1940s. Gelatin silver print. 35,2 x 27,8 cm. Signed by the photographer in pencil in lower right corner and copyright in the negative in lower left corner. - Slightly buckled in upper edge, a few light handling marks, otherwise in good condition.


Lit.: Marion Beckers/Elisabeth Moortgat. Atelier Lotte Jacobi - Berlin, New York. Berlin 1997. ill. pp. 191-192 (similar photogenics).

Photogenic drawing. 1946/55. Gelatin silver print. 28 x 23 cm. Signed by the photographer in pencil in lower right, flush-mounted to hard exhibition board.

Retouched small loss in right edge, a few small spots, otherwise in very good condition.

The actor Emil Jannings. Circa 1931. Vintage gelatin silver print. 31,4 x 27 cm. Signed in pencil lower left, mounted to board (corners bumped, small paper loss in left edge), matted.

Small loss in emulsion layer in lower edge, a few small nicks in emulsion in edges, some light retouched spots in left side, otherwise in near excellent condition.

Lit.: Marion Beckers/Elisabeth Moortgat. Atelier Lotte Jacobi - Berlin, New York. Berlin 1997, ill. p. 137.

"Pauline Koner, Dancer" (photomontage with photogenic). Circa 1940. Vintage gelatin silver print on thick champois paper. 18 x 24,5 cm. Signed by the photographer in pencil in lower right corner.

In the 1930s Lotte Jacobi had photographed many well-known figures of modern dance in Berlin such as Claire Bauroff, Vera Skoronel and Harald Kreutzberg. She was particularily interested in the dynamics and abstraction of expressive dance. The image offered here, taken in her New York studio circa 1940, reflects Jacobi's fascination in the combination of the dancing figure of the American dancer Pauline Koner with one of her abstract photogenics to emphasize the flowing movement of modern dance. – Stronger crease in upper left, smaller creases throughout, otherwise in good condition.

Lit.: Marion Beckers/ Elisabeth Moortgat. Atelier Lotte Jacobi. Berlin, New York. Berlin 1997, ill. p. 190.

Flower images. Circa 1930. 6 vintage ferrotyped gelatin silver prints. Each circa 24 x 17,5 cm. Each with Foto-Werkstatt Bender u. Jacobi, Kurfürstendamm 35 studio stamp and typed title label on the verso.



Literatur: Marion Beckers/Elisabeth Moortgat. Atelier Lotte Jacobi - Berlin, New York. Berlin 1997.

Jacobi, Lotte, bedeutende Photographin, emigrierte 1935 in die USA (1896-1990). Konvolut von 16 eigh. Photo-Postkarten m. U. "Lotte" (1 mit "Lotte Jacobi"), meist mit vollständig beschrifteter Textseite im Umschlag verschickt. In engl. Sprache. Zus. 16 S. Alle Photos stammen von Lotte Jacobi, 10 sind handschriftlich signiert, die übrigen meist mit Blindstempel versehen. (Düsseldorf und New York) 1962 - ca. 1977.
Bis auf eine Ausnahme an ein befreundetes Ehepaar in Stockbridge, Mass., gerichtet. Freundschaftlicher Nachrichten-Austausch, häufig auch mit Erwähnung ihrer Tätigkeit als Photographin, nicht selten in Geldsorgen. Auf der ersten Karte (Düsseldorf 1962) schreibt sie: "... My new address is 'c/o Johannes Molzahn, München 2, Theresienstrasse 3/a^V , Germany. From there to Italy, where I have no address yet ...". Im Februar 1965 fragt sie an: "... Do you think you could send me another $ 50.- You got 30 photos (or a few more) at $ 5.- each, it would be $ 150.-, you sent me $ 100.- And 5 is really very little, don't you think? ... Don't you need a photographer to go with you to Europe? ...". - 1 Karte (mit voller Unterschrift) ist an einen Mitarbeiter des Museum of Modern Art gerichtet. - Beiliegend weitere 10 Photos in Postkarten-Format, davon 9 signiert. Teils Porträts prominenter Persönlichkeiten, darunter Max Planck, Max Liebermann, Max Reinhardt/Helene Thimig und andere. - Schöne Sammlung signierter Photos und Autographen der hervorragenden Bildkünstlerin.