Hidden Monocles: Queer Women, New Objectivity and Art in the Weimar Republic

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She lived on Kurfürstendamm for many decades and was a chronicler of the ‘Golden Twenties’ - Jeanne Mammen. Today, she is (once again) known as an important representative of this era who drew, illustrated and immersed herself in Berlin's glittering nightlife.

She was also one of the artists who never married, which gives rise to speculation: Was she a lesbian? There is still no proof of this today. But her paintings of female figures in the 1920s contributed to the concept of the ‘new woman’. The image of women became more permeable after the end of the First World War. This was particularly evident in painting, where female figures were portrayed more androgynously, in work clothes and self-confidently.

The ‘New Objectivity’ movement was also characterised by its focus on socially critical themes. It did not glamorise anything, but showed the poverty, social insecurity, but also the frenzy and dance of the 1920s. At the same time, the new ‘Staatliches Bauhaus’ design school was established in Weimar, which combined art and craftsmanship in a very practical way - new housing for ‘ordinary’ people. Here, the ‘new woman’ was also given a new kitchen and thus became a beneficiary of modular construction. So how much did role models and gender boundaries really change?

Nevertheless, women artists still had to remain behind the scenes. Not a single female artist's work was included in the ‘New Objectivity’ show a hundred years ago. Art academies were closed to women for a long time. They only gained access with the Weimar Constitution of 1919. In addition, there were quite a few men who generally doubted women's artistic ability. Nevertheless, female artists such as Jeanne Mammen and Dörte Clara Wolff found a way to create and illustrate for magazines such as Ulk in the 1920s.

But when the Nazis came to power, any hope of lasting progressive change within society died. Many of the artists had to flee, like Lotte Laserstein, or fell victim to the Nazis, like Elfriede Lohse-Wächter. Some went into inner emigration - Hannah Höch was one of them.

They were all forgotten for decades. One even speaks of the ‘lost generation’, to which not only, but also many women belonged. Jeanne Mammen was only rediscovered after her death in the 1970s. Dörte Clara Wolff was unable to regain her earlier success after fleeing Germany until her death in London in 1997. Most artists experienced a significant break in their careers as a result of National Socialism.

 

More women than men at the Bauhaus?

It was a similar story for the Bauhaus generation. Many Bauhaus members left the country after 1933 when the Bauhaus school in Dessau was closed, but some also sympathised with the Nazis.

The Bauhaus was a blueprint for a new way of thinking in architecture, living and design. But how modern was the school in terms of women and queer life? Walter Gropius' call to study at the Bauhaus for everyone, regardless of gender and age, was unusual and promising. In fact, more women applied than men, so Gropius limited the proportion of women to a third the following year.

Today we know just how male-dominated the supposedly revolutionary design school was. However, art historian Elizabeth Otto sees the founder Walter Gropius as a supporter of women at the Bauhaus, partly because he must be understood in the context of his time. He supported individual women, such as Gunta Stölzl, who eventually rose from student to lecturer in weaving as a so-called young master craftswoman, something that was otherwise only granted to men at the school.

 

The deeply rooted structures of patriarchal thinking were also evident at the Bauhaus. Women were allowed to take small steps, which were then written large on the banner. The real cake, however, was divided among the men. It is therefore not surprising that today, according to Elizabeth Otto's research, just five people from the Bauhaus are considered queer, three of whom were lesbians. She assumes that sexual orientation was also largely concealed at the Bauhaus. In an interview with the Bauhaus Cooperation Network, Otto said: ‘I see that the Bauhaus was particularly open to queer people at the time. But it was a place that many young people turned to and were attracted to in search of new ways of living, and some of them seem to have made queer connections and alliances, probably under the radar.’

One of them was the American lesbian photographer Florence Henri, who was also friends with Walter Gropius, among others. She had a relationship with another Bauhaus student, the painter Margarete Schall, who worked as an art teacher and with whom Henri later lived together for a time in Paris. Schall died young, in 1939, and Henri continued to work in her Paris photo studio.
Some of her most famous works were created there, including portraits of Schall, Hans Arp and Wassily Kandinsky. However, it is not clear whether Henri and Schall were out during their time as students at the Bauhaus, says Elizabeth Otto.

 

Another Bauhaus artist who may have been a lesbian is the wallpaper designer and painter Margaret Camille Leiteritz. Most of her paintings were lost during the war. She later worked as a librarian in Wuppertal and Karlsruhe, among other places. Her work there inspired her to create further works. She also remained unmarried and largely unknown until her death in 1976.

What generally makes researching the fates of female artists particularly difficult are marriages and name changes or, if the women remained single, their sometimes difficult living conditions, which left hardly any traces in the archives. Added to this are flight and expulsion during the Second World War as well as traditional gender relations, which were never really questioned. This is why research into queer artists, whether in painting or as designers, is still ongoing today. Little by little, the ‘Lost Generation’ is being made visible.

 

This article first appeared in L-MAG - Das Magazin für Lesben (March/April 2025). Many thanks to author and  magazine for providing the text.

 

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