Lotte Laserstein

When one speaks of the "lost generation," it also includes Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993). After the National Socialists seized power, she was forced to leave Germany, and her exile resulted in her being forgotten. Laserstein's artistic career, however, began auspiciously: in 1927, she was the first woman to complete studies at the Berlin Academy of the Arts withdistinction, and quickly made a name for herself in the art metropolis. While her works are close to Neue Sachlichkeit, they lack its cool, dissecting smoothness. Laserstein's selfassured view of the new woman, technical mastery, play with traditional and modern visual formulas, as well as her synthesis of objectivity and sensitivity give her pictures a captivating contemporaneity and time-transcending topicality.