A New Woman, A New Vision: The Bauhaus Photographers

Berlin Exhibition Reveals the Overlooked Women Who Shaped Bauhaus Photography

In her 1928 self-portrait, Grit Kallin-Fischer lies on her back, angled into the frame, arms crossed, a cigarette in one hand. Marianne Brandt captured herself in the reflection of a metallic sphere, her own figure—camera in hand—pushed to the edges, distorted. Even the iconic Bauhaus balconies of Dessau are recognizable in the orb. Florence Henri staged herself at a table of wooden planks like a bust, propped on her elbows as she gazes into a narrow mirror, two spheres resting before her.

Each of these self-portraits discovers a compelling, elegant form in the search for new perspectives. They radiate a joy of experimentation and the cool aesthetic of modernity.

Bauhaus women students photographed frequently, whether they were in the photography workshop or studying painting, architecture, or design. Many of the images used by the publicity-conscious art school to promote itself were taken by women—though they were not always credited as the authors. The best-known story is that of Lucia Moholy, whose photographs of the famous façades and balconies, design objects, and material studies, as well as portraits of teachers and students, continue to shape the Bauhaus's public image to this day.

The forward-looking aesthetic of the Bauhaus—its dynamism, its play of light—was distilled into her images, circulated on postcards and in magazines, often without her name. Walter Gropius used her negatives for his publications in exile in the U.S., still without attribution.

Forgotten for Decades

Though their images were widely recognized, the photographers themselves were not—many were even forgotten for decades. The Nazi regime's suppression of the Bauhaus and the exile of numerous artists contributed to this erasure. Now, the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin is showcasing 30 of these women in the exhibition "A New Woman, A New Vision" at the Museum of Photography. The Bauhaus Archive itself has been closed since 2018, its new building still under construction. But work on the collection—including some 40,000 photographs—has continued. Every drawer was opened, every biography researched, explains curator Kristin Bartels.

Many women, not just at the Bauhaus, used the then-emerging medium of photography to forge independent careers. Bartels situates the Bauhaus women within a broader social context, where both bourgeois and proletarian circles were seeking emancipation from traditional gender roles. The exhibition's first chapter thus focuses on self-representation as independent women and artists, through portraits and self-portraits. What follows—staying true to the classic narrative of the Bauhaus—are sections on photography instruction, art and experimentation, design and material studies, and architecture.

The most intriguing moments come when the exhibition steps off the well-trodden paths of Bauhaus history. Take Irena Blühová, a committed member of the Communist Party of Slovakia. In 1931, she began studying in Walter Peterhans' photography class at the Bauhaus while already contributing social reportage to the Workers' Illustrated Newspaper (AIZ). Later, as a fighter in the anti-fascist resistance, she was forced into hiding. Her works on display include nature studies as well as scenes of rural life.

The Life of the Toba, Poverty in Chicago

Among the photographers who earned their living through reportage was Grete Stern. In the 1960s, living in Argentina, she documented the lives of the Toba, an Indigenous group. Most of the images in the "People and Lands" section were created after the women left Germany, tracing their paths into exile.

The exhibition also features three artists who studied at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, including Else Tholstrup. In the 1950s, she captured elegant women on the streets of Chicago or told stories of poverty through images like that of a sleeping man on a bench.

A playful twist in this Bauhaus exhibition is that men do not appear in their usual roles as leaders or instructors. Instead, the selection includes images where they are portrayed as friends and lovers of the photographers. Etel Mittag-Fodor's work is particularly tender and intimate, whether she is photographing a nude, her sleeping husband, or a couple in love.

For many of the women artists at the Bauhaus, their time there was often brief yet profoundly influential. The exhibition benefits from not limiting its selection of works to their Bauhaus years alone. One only wishes it traced the individual journeys of these protagonists a little further. Their biographies, however, reveal a recurring pattern: many later set aside their own photography—often in favor of supporting their partners' artistic careers.

In this way, the exhibition assembles the pieces of a larger collage, offering insight into why so many female photographers and artists—who began their careers in the 1920s and achieved success—were later forgotten.