580 - Charlotte Joël (Berlin 1887 - 1943 Berlin)

Charlotte Joël (Berlin 1887 - 1943 Berlin) Karl Kraus, 1924 vintage gelatin silver print/matte finish paper 20,2 x 16,3 cm verso credited by an unknown hand SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 600 - 1400 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 600 Charlotte Joël (1887–1943) was a German photographer who made a name for herself primarily as a portraitist of the literary and artistic scenes of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1916, she opened a "Studio for Modern Photography" in Berlin-Charlottenburg together with Marie Heinzelmann, photographing numerous figures from the worlds of art, literature, and culture. Among her most famous subjects were Walter Benjamin, Karl Kraus, Marlene Dietrich, Gustav Landauer, and Martin Buber. She had a particularly close connection to Karl Kraus, whom she photographed repeatedly between 1921 and 1930; her portraits thus place her work in the immediate orbit of Austrian literature and the journal *Die Fackel*, edited by Kraus. Due to her Jewish heritage, Joël was banned from practicing her profession after 1933 and was deported to Auschwitz in 1943, where all trace of her is lost. Joël’s photographic work sits within the broader context of modern European portrait photography and its links to literature, theater, and the avant-garde. Contemporary counterparts include Lotte Jacobi and Hugo Erfurth, who also became known for their portraits of artists and prominent figures; like Joël, Jacobi belonged to a generation of Jewish female photographers who documented the cultural life of the Weimar Republic. Joël’s portraits of Walter Benjamin and Karl Kraus link her photography to the intellectual culture of Viennese Modernism and German-language literature. Terms such as portrait photography, Berlin Modernism, Viennese Modernism, Austrian literature, *Die Fackel*, Walter Benjamin, Karl Kraus, the avant-garde, and literary portraiture thus characterize key aspects of her work. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights and platform fee. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer's premium and platform fee. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.