Lotte
Stam Beese created this work by superimposing a photograph of Otti Berger over
an image of the Bauhaus studio building in 1928. The Bauhaus was Germany’s most
advanced school of modern design. Stam Beese studied architecture, weaving, and
photography at the Bauhaus; Otti Berger was one of the school’s most well-known
weavers.

In Stam Beese’s photograph, the linear structure
of the Bauhaus balconies adds a sense of assertiveness and hope to Berger’s
feminine face. Nevertheless, destiny did not favor this gifted weaver. In 1939,
while visiting her ailing mother in Yugoslavia, Berger was seized by the Nazis
and died in a concentration camp.