Ringl + Pit
Komol, Berlin

© 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

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Images(3)

Artist Ringl + Pit(Berlin, active 1930s)Berlin, active 1930s

Artist Ellen Auerbach and (German, 1906–2004)German, 1906–2004

Artist Grete Stern (Argentinean, born Germany, 1904–1999)Argentinean, born Germany, 1904–1999

CultureGerman

Titles

Komol, Berlin

Date1932, printed later

PlaceBerlin, Germany

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage (sight): 13 3/16 × 8 3/4 in. (33.5 × 22.2 cm)
Mount: 19 × 14 15/16 in. (48.2 × 38 cm)

Credit LineGift of Joan Morgenstern

Object number2008.756

Not on view

Explore Further

Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

Description

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

Stamped in black ink, mount verso, center: FOTOGRAFIE // RINGL + PIT
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

Signed in pencil, verso of mount, center: Ellen Auerbach // Grete Stern

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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