Lotte Laserstein, a painter in Berlin

Abend uber Potsdam

Lotte Laserstein

The German-Swedish painter Lotte Laserstein was born in Prussia in 1898. She received her artistic training at the Berlin Art Academy, which she entered only a couple of years after it had opened its doors to women painters.

Berlin in the 1920s was an uneasy yet exciting place. Laserstein painted cadavers to illustrate text books to obtain cash during the period of hyperinflation. During this time women were growing in independence and were increasingly entering the workplace. Laserstein depicted the New Woman, who also adopted a stereotyped appearance of a masculine look, typically with a man's style haircut.

Her early work was typical of both the avant-garde New Objectivity movement and the extremely traditional backward-looking trends in German art of the period. 

Her works were peopled with attenuated intellectuals such as one sees in the portraits of Christian Schad, but her figures also often had a strong, cold, and athletic look that would have made them appropriate for Nazi propaganda posters. A painting of a lady tennis player, bursting with strength, is a good example of the type. Laserstein is difficult to place conclusively in any aesthetic category. There is a sense of emotion and a connection with her models which does not appear to be suited to New Objectivity. Art historians have also argued for her placement within German Realism and German Naturalism.

Laserstein's masterpiece was the large 1930 painting Abend über Potsdam (Evening over Potsdam), with Potsdam's skyline arrayed in the far distance. The mood is pensive and full of ennui.

During the Nazi period, Laserstein, with Jewish roots, emigrated to Sweden.

She was rediscovered in 1987, when Thomas Agnew and Sons and the Belgrave Gallery organized a joint exhibition. In 2003, a large retrospective of Laserstein's work was held in Berlin.

She died in 1993.