Elisabeth Hase (December 16, 1905 – October 9, 1991) was a German commercial and documentary photographer active in Frankfurt from 1932 until her death in 1991, at the age of 85.

Life and work

Hase was born in Döhlen bei

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

, Germany. She studied typography and commercial art from 1924 to 1929 at the School of Applied Arts, and later at the

Städelschule The Städelschule, full name Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from around 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 ...

, under, among other teachers,

Paul Renner Paul Friedrich August Renner (9 August 1878 – 25 April 1956) was a German typeface designer, author, and founder of the Master School for Germany's Printers in Munich. In 1927, he designed the Futura (typeface), Futura typeface, which beca ...

and

Willi Baumeister Willi Baumeister (22 January 1889 – 31 August 1955) was a German painter, scenic designer, art professor, and typographer. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics. Life Born in S ...

. Hase was active as a photographer during the time of the transition from the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

to the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

and through post-WWII Germany. She was able to avoid government oversight of her work by establishing her own photographic studio in 1933. Hase's work included surreal photography, such as close-up photographs of dolls. She received several awards, several for paper designs and

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

s. During a two-year collaboration in the studio of and , Hase took architectural photographs in

New Objectivity The New Objectivity (in ) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against German Expressionism, expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle Mannheim, Kunsthalle' ...

style for the magazine ''Das Neue Frankfurt'' (''The New Frankfurt'') and documentary photographs of modern housing projects, including those of

Ferdinand Kramer Ferdinand Kramer (22 January 1898, Frankfurt, Germany – 4 November 1985, Frankfurt) was a German architect and Functionalism (architecture), functionalist designer. Biography Kramer's father was owner of the most well-known of Frankfurt hat ...

. In 1932, Hase started her own business. It focused on timeless designs like

still life A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, human-m ...

, structures, plants, dolls, people, especially

self-portrait Self-portraits are Portrait painting, portraits artists make of themselves. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, the practice of self-portraiture only gaining momentum in the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century ...

s. Often she used herself as a model in her photographic "picture stories." Cooperation with agencies like Holland Press Service and the Agency Schostal "The Schostal Agency"
/ref> enabled her to publish her photographs internationally. Despite the bombing of Frankfurt in 1944 by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

, Hare's photographic archive survived the war without major damage. Many of those works are now part of the collections held by the

Folkwang Museum Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patr ...

in Essen, Germany, in the

Albertina The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well ...

(Vienna) in Vienna, and in the Walter Gropius estate in the

Bauhaus Archive The Bauhaus Archive () is a state archive and Museum of Design located in Berlin. It collects art pieces, items, documents and literature which relate to the Bauhaus School (1919–1933), and puts them on public display. Currently, the museum ...

in Berlin, as well as in private collections in Germany and abroad. Despite loss of her cameras and other technical equipment in the chaos of war, Hase was able to resume taking photographs in 1946 by the help of emigre friends who provided her with film and cameras to use. Among other subjects Hase documented was the reconstruction of St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt. From 1949, her work focused on advertising, consisting mostly of plant portraits. Hase died at the age of 85 in 1991 in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

am Main.

Publications

* „Elisabeth Hase, Portrait einer Fotografin" in Fotogeschichte Jg.1, Heft 2, 1981, Hsg. Timm Starl * Katalog „Elisabeth Hase",

Steidl Verlag Steidl is a German-language publisher based in Göttingen, Germany. Founded in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl, it publishes photobooks. Overview The company was started by Gerhard Steidl.Bill Kouwenhoven, "Off to see the wizard", ''British Journal ...

2003, Hrsg. Prof. Ute Eskildsen * Lohmann, Gabriele: „Elisabeth Hase. Fotografin für Presse und Werbung. Die 1930er bis 50er Jahre", elektron. Diss. Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum 2003 (online, retrieved, January 23, 2015) * Katalog „nützlich, süss und museal / das fotografierte Tier",

* „Unsere Zeit hat ein neues Formgefühl", Arbeiten aus der Fotografischen Sammlung des

Museum Folkwang Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th- and 20th-century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patr ...

, 2012 * Publikationen mit Abbldg. Von E. Hase ab 1932 in zahlreichen Büchern, Zeitungen und Zeitschriften

References

External links

"Elisabeth Hase: An Independent Vision," Exhibition, Mar 31, 2016 — May 07, 2016, Robert Mann Gallery, New York City Robert Mann Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hase, Elisabeth 1905 births 1991 deaths German graphic designers German women graphic designers Photographers from Frankfurt 20th-century German artists 20th-century German photographers German women photographers 20th-century German women artists Businesspeople from Frankfurt