Aenne Biermann (1898-1933); 'Strasse' (Avenue des Champs-Élysées);

Aenne Biermann (1898-1933) 'Strasse' (Avenue des Champs-Élysées), c. 1931 Gelatin silver print; titled and annotated in pencil and the photographer's 'Aenne Biermann, Gera, d.w.b.' studio stamp, numbered '2856' in pencil, on the reverse, framed, two San Francisco Museum of Modern Art labels on the reverse. 9 3/8 x 7 in. (23.8 x 17.8 cm.) Footnotes: Provenance Galerie Kicken-Pauseback, Cologne, 1988 Exhibited San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, A History of Photography from California Collections, 9 February - 30 April 1989 Saleroom notices: Literature Aenne Biermann Photographs 1925-1933, London, 1988, p. 66 Aenne Biermann: Fotografin, Zürich, 2020, p. 135 Raz Samira, ed., Aenne Biermann: Up Close and Personal, Tel Aviv and Zürich, 2021, p. 112 Note Self-taught German photographer Aenne Biermann began her exploration of photography in 1921 by taking snapshots of her infant daughter, Helga. The development of her craft continued throughout the 1920's, when she ultimately reached a more intentional mode of production. 'One might say that until 1927 I engaged in casual photography,' Biermann remarked in a 1930 essay for the journal Thüringen Eine Monatsschrift für alte und neue Kultur. 'That is, preserving memories and documenting events of a purely sentimental meaning, such as photographs of my children at crucial junctures of their development, sights seen while travelling, and the like.' While portraiture would continue to comprise the bulk of Biermann's oeuvre, by the late 1920s she had expanded the scope of her subject matter to include stones, minerals, household items, flowers, cityscapes, and architecture. Biermann often experimented in the darkroom, adjusting exposure, development time, and printing techniques to achieve a wide variety of results. One such experiment is evidenced by the photomontage in the present lot. Biermann's inversion of the architectural image of the Champs-Élysées and tight cropping of the portrait element achieve a disorienting and abstract effect. The sitter, Anneliese Schiesser, posed nude for Biermann during a circa 1930 session and appears in several other works by the photographer. Biermann was a prolific photographer, making an estimated 3,400 works during her short lifetime. Following her untimely death in 1933, her husband and children were forced to flee Germany in order to escape Jewish persecution at the hands of the Nazis. As a result of this hasty exodus, during the holocaust and subsequent decades of communist control in Germany, most of Biermann's archive, including prints and negatives, were lost. An estimated 400 original prints by the photographer have survived, making vintage prints by Biermann exceedingly rare to market. Another print of this image is in the collection of Museum Folkwang in Essen (Inv. 1081/83). For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing

Saleroom Notice:
Literature
Aenne Biermann Photographs 1925-1933, London, 1988, p. 66
Aenne Biermann: Fotografin, Zürich, 2020, p. 135
Raz Samira, ed., Aenne Biermann: Up Close and Personal, Tel Aviv and Zürich, 2021, p. 112

Note
Self-taught German photographer Aenne Biermann began her exploration of photography in 1921 by taking snapshots of her infant daughter, Helga. The development of her craft continued throughout the 1920's, when she ultimately reached a more intentional mode of production. "One might say that until 1927 I engaged in casual photography," Biermann remarked in a 1930 essay for the journal Thüringen Eine Monatsschrift für alte und neue Kultur. "That is, preserving memories and documenting events of a purely sentimental meaning, such as photographs of my children at crucial junctures of their development, sights seen while travelling, and the like."

While portraiture would continue to comprise the bulk of Biermann's oeuvre, by the late 1920s she had expanded the scope of her subject matter to include stones, minerals, household items, flowers, cityscapes, and architecture. Biermann often experimented in the darkroom, adjusting exposure, development time, and printing techniques to achieve a wide variety of results. One such experiment is evidenced by the photomontage in the present lot. Biermann's inversion of the architectural image of the Champs-Élysées and tight cropping of the portrait element achieve a disorienting and abstract effect. The sitter, Anneliese Schiesser, posed nude for Biermann during a circa 1930 session and appears in several other works by the photographer.

Biermann was a prolific photographer, making an estimated 3,400 works during her short lifetime. Following her untimely death in 1933, her husband and children were forced to flee Germany in order to escape Jewish persecution at the hands of the Nazis. As a result of this hasty exodus, during the holocaust and subsequent decades of communist control in Germany, most of Biermann's archive, including prints and negatives, were lost. An estimated 400 original prints by the photographer have survived, making vintage prints by Biermann exceedingly rare to market. Another print of this image is in the collection of Museum Folkwang in Essen (Inv. 1081/83).