Lotte Laserstein – A private collection

Lotte Laserstein & Erich Wolfsfeld

From 1920 onward, Erich Wolfsfeld (1884–1956) served as professor of painting and etching at the Berlin Academy of Arts, where one of his students was Lotte Laserstein (1898–1993). A comparison of their respective visual languages reveals clear points of contact, bearing witness to an artistic exchange in which the teacher–student relationship developed into a mutual influence.

Wolfsfeld was a highly accomplished printmaker. After studies at the Berlin Academy of Arts and the Académie Julian in Paris, he was entrusted in 1905 with a prestigious commission from the Prussian government: to produce etched copies of Byzantine frescoes in the classical ruins of Priene, intended for a planned but never realized publication. In 1911 he was awarded the Kaiser Wilhelm Gold Medal for Painting.

Lotte Laserstein’s studies at the Berlin Academy of Arts until 1927 brought her considerable success, particularly for her accomplished portrait painting, above all through her depictions of young, modern women in the Weimar Republic of the 1920s. Over time, the relationship between Laserstein and Wolfsfeld developed into a close friendship, and their artistic oeuvres were presented together in a exhibition at Agnew’s Gallery in London in 1990–91, several decades after Wolfsfeld’s death.

This collection originates from a gift from Laserstein to Bodil Hagbrink, who in turn donated the collection to a friend. It comprises several of Lotte Laserstein’s personal sketchbooks as well as etchings by Erich Wolfsfeld, which were likely given to Laserstein by her former teacher. The collection also includes rare etchings by Lotte Laserstein, featuring portraits of, among others, Traute and Agneta Runqvist.