© Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Ellen-Auerbach-Archiv./ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Estate of Grete Stern courtesy Galería Jorge Mara – La Ruche, Buenos Aires; © 1932 Ringl + Pit, courtesy Robert Mann Gallery
- Komol, Berlin
Mount: 19 × 14 15/16 in. (48.2 × 38 cm)
Explore Further
Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach met in Berlin while
studying photography with Walter Peterhans, who would soon become head of photography
at the innovative Bauhaus school. Together, Stern and Auerbach formed the photography
studio Ringl + Pit, bringing pioneering photographic experimentation to advertising
and portraiture, and marrying the commercial with the avant-garde in a time of increased female independence. This photograph, a prize-winning
advertisement for Komol hair dye, playfully subverts traditional beauty imagery
by emphasizing artificiality—fake hair, paper silhouette, and metallic mesh.
Provenance[Nancy Medwell, Seattle]; purchased by Joan Morgenstern, Houston, March 8, 1992; given to MFAH, 2008.
Exhibition History"Icons of Style: A Century of Fashion Photography," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 23–September 22, 2019.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Signed in pencil, mount verso, center: Ellen Auerbach // Grete Stern
Printed in black ink on applied label on interleaving: RINGL & PIT (GRETE STERN & ELLEN AUERBACH) // Komol, Berlin 1932 // 13 x 9inches // Signed in pencil by Auerbach and Stern and // stamped Ringle & Piton the verso
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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