Aenne Biermann: 60 Photos

Aenne Biermann (1898–1933) is regarded as one of the most important avant-garde photographers of the twentieth century. Together with Bauhaus artists such as Lucia Moholy and Florence Henri, she was represented in the pioneering exhibitions of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Then, in 1930, art critic and Biermann’s early patron Franz Roh dedicated to her a legendary monograph designed by Jan Tschichold, Aenne Biermann. 60 Photos. This classic work is now finally being made available once more, accompanied by commentary from photo historian and Biermann expert Hans-Michael Koetzle.

As early as 1928, Roh was referring to Biermann as a “remarkable” photo artist who was attracting the attention of experts with her close-up pictures of plants. In the following years, Biermann, an autodidact of photography, became an important artist in photographic modernism. Her works created a haunting and aesthetically fascinating pictorial world filled with close-up views, extreme detail shots, and lighting contrasts. She mostly found her motifs in her immediate vicinity—in addition to the numerous still lifes with everyday objects and nature, she repeatedly photographed her children, their object world, and their activities. Many of these originals were lost during the Second World War, including the sixty photos in this book.

Published to mark the Bauhaus jubilee in 2019, this book is an incredible tribute to a great woman artist of the modern age.