7122 - Jacobi, Annot (Anna-Ottilie)

Jacobi, Annot (Anna-Ottilie) Tulja Oil on canvas, with relining. 1923. 100 x 81 cm. Signed "ANNOT" in reddish-brown with a brush in the upper right corner. An impressive, harmoniously colored portrait of an emancipated woman of the 1920s. The subject is the Russian-born Tulja Jenssen (née Gerda Margaretha Jenssen, 1904–1967), who worked as a fashion model and painter and was closely associated with numerous artists. Entirely in the style of the “New Woman” of the Weimar Republic—with a radical short haircut, dressed fashionably, and striking a self-assured, almost masculine pose, this portrait fits into a whole series of depictions of women that Annot created in the early 1920s, featuring working women. Just as the painting suggests, the painter “Annot” was a fascinating personality who remains so to this day. As the grandniece of the painter Adolf von Menzel, who was also her godfather, she received painting and drawing lessons from Lovis Corinth, among others, and later in Paris from André Lhote. She became an advocate for peace and human rights at an early age. After marrying the artist Rudolf Jacobi in 1921, she and he founded the Annot Art School in Berlin in 1928. In 1933, the Jacobis emigrated to New York, where Annot continued to run her art school under the name “Annot Art School” at Rockefeller Center. The work is featured in the catalog for the exhibition “Women in Motion: Magdila and Moucky Christiansen between Flensburg and Paris,” Museumsberg Flensburg, January 31, 2027 – May 23, 2027. Provenance: Formerly from the estate of Rudolf Jacobi Exhibition: Annot. Paintings, Watercolors, Galerie von Abercron, Munich 1978, Cat. No. 11, ill. p. 21 (b/w) - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is only indicated in the catalog in exceptional cases. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.