Olga Oppenheimer(9 July 1886 – 4 July 1941) was a German Expressionist artist.
Education
editOppenheimer trained underPaul Sérusierin Paris in 1909. Thereafter, she trained in private studios in Munich and Dachau. Oppenheimer's father encouraged her pursuit of art and provided her with a studio, which was called the Gereonshaus, in his office building.[1]
Career
editOppenheimer was a co-founder of theGereonsklub,an art school and major venue for modern art inCologne,Germany, in 1911. The Gereonsklub became a center of contemporaryavant-gardeart in the Rhineland, presentingDer Blaue Reiter,Franz Marc,Paul Klee,Robert Delaunayand others for the first time in Cologne.[2]Oppenheimer's artistic career was brief, spanning the years 1907 to 1916. Only ten of her works survive, five of which are illustrations.[3]
Oppenheimer's work was exhibited in the International Sonderbund in Cologne in 1912 along with the work of two other women artists,Marie LaurencinandPaula Modersohn-Becker.The next year, in 1913, she participated in an exhibition of Rhenish Expressionists at Walter Cohen's Bookstore, put together byAugust Macke,an influential Expressionist painter himself.[1]
Oppenheimer was the only female German artist who participated in theArmory Show,which opened in New York City in 1913 and traveled to Boston and Chicago. She contributed a series of six woodcuts entitledVan Zanten's Happy Time,which was displayed in the same gallery as prints byEdvard Munch.After 1916, her health began to decline, and she was committed to a sanatorium in 1918.[3]
Her career was interrupted by severe depression. In 1918, she entered the Waltbreitbach Sanatorium, a psychiatric institution where she spent twenty years of her life. Oppenheimer was deported in 1941 to theLublin Reservation,Poland and died oftyphusat the camp on 4 July 1941.[3]
Personal life
editIn 1913, Oppenheimer married Adolf Worringer, the brother of her friendEmmy Worringer.They had two sons and later divorced.[2]
References
edit- ^abBehr, Shulamith (1996). "Jewish women and Expressionism: artists, patrons and dealers".Issues in Architecture, Art & Design.5(1).
- ^abShircliff, Jennifer Pfeifer (May 2014).Women of the 1913 Armory Show: Their Contributions to the Development of American Modern Art (dissertation).University of Louisville.Retrieved7 March2015.
- ^abcDelia Glaze (1997).Olga Oppenheimer,Dictionary of Women Artists Volume 2pp. 1048-1049.ISBN1884964214.