Important Spring Sale presents a collection of Lotte Laserstein

Laserstein received classical academic training, and her works often contain references to art history. However, during her artistically expansive phase in the 1920s and 1930s, she also drew inspiration from contemporary popular culture in her subjects. She was influenced by the liberating fashion for women at the time; wearing loose-fitting dresses, cutting hair short, dressing and accentuating androgynous features. Laserstein often depicted modern emancipated women engaging in sports or sitting alone in cafés. Her art is counted among "New Objectivity" and is both traditionally figurative and discreetly rebellious. The human figure was Laserstein's primary subject, and she painted around 2000 portraits in her lifetime. She was able to support herself through her art throughout her life, with clients including well-known personalities from the aristocracy as well as from politics, business, and culture.

In 1952, Lotte Laserstein received a commission to portray the then-governor couple of Kalmar, Ruben and Helga Wagnsson. In connection with this, she began commuting between Kalmar and Stockholm. She took a liking to Öland, where she bought a summer cottage in the mid-1950s. In 1959, she settled permanently in Kalmar. Laserstein continued to paint portraits but also devoted herself to floral still lifes and landscapes. At exhibitions in Kalmar, she presented new oils, drawings, watercolors, and pastels. Her studio and residence were located on Norra Långgatan in Kalmar, where her central works from the Berlin period were displayed.

In 1987, Laserstein's paintings were recognized at two prestigious galleries in London, which marked the beginning of an international rediscovery. In 2003, she was also recognized in Germany through an exhibition at the Museum Ephraim-Palais in Berlin. The German exhibition and its catalog were managed by Anna-Carola Krausse, who also wrote her doctoral thesis on Lotte Laserstein and a presentation of her life and work. "Meine einzige Wirklichkeit" (My Only Reality) was the theme of the Berlin exhibition, a quote from Lotte Laserstein who saw art as the reality she lived in and for. In Sweden, her artistry was first highlighted in a memorial exhibition at the Kalmar Museum in 2004, then at the Jewish Museum and later at Bror Hjorth's House in Uppsala.

Lotte Laserstein's artistry has just been further highlighted with the exhibition "A Divided Life," running from November 11, 2023, to April 14, 2024, at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The exhibition was first shown at the Moderna Museet in Malmö from May 6 to October 1, 2023, and was curated by Anna-Carola Krausse and Iris Müller-Westermann. It is the largest exhibition of Laserstein's art in the Nordic region to date.