The next Artist You Need To Know is Grete Stern (1904-1999).
Stern was a German – Argentine photographer, teacher and graphic designer whose work in photo montage helped define that medium in the 20th century. After leaving Europe for Argentina she became an essential player in the development of a unique Argentinian visual aesthetic.
She is perhaps best known for her series of 150 photomontages that she created from 1948 to 1950 : Stern had been commissioned by a womens’ magazine to “illustrate” the dreams that readers of the magazine (primarily Argentine housewives) submitted. The series – titled Sueños [Dreams] – are among some of the finest photomontage works in art history and they “comprise perhaps the most brilliant and telling psychological document ever made of the inner lives of women of that era” that combined Stern’s feminist and aesthetic principles.
“Photography has given me great happiness. I learned a lot and was able to say things I wanted to say and show.”
Stern was born in Elberfeld, Germany but she had family in England : she often spent extended periods there and her early childhood education was in the U.K. Between 1923 – 1925 she studied graphic arts at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Stuttgart. However, experiencing the works of Edward Weston and Paul Outerbridge inspired her to begin focusing on photography, and Stern relocated to Berlin (in 1927) and took private lessons from Walter Peterhans. From 1926 onwards Stern worked in graphic design, as well as studying at the renowned Bauhaus art school (1930 – 1933).
She would collaborate with her friend and fellow artist Ellen Auerbach to open a photography studio they called ringl+pit : portraits and advertising were the majority of their work, and often humour – as well as exploring more innovative photographic techniques – were hallmarks of their work. For a photo studio, their works were staunchly avant-garde, and a poster artwork they produced titled Komol won first prize in the second International Exhibition of Photography and Cinema in 1933 in Brussels.
Like many artists of this period in Germany (including several previously featured Artists You Need To Know, from Germaine Krull to Käthe Kollwitz to Hannah Höch) the rise of Hitler and the nazis shuttered their studio and put their lives in danger.
In 1935 Stern emigrated to London and continued her work – specifically her portraits, as she created some of the most striking images of those who were also part of the German intellectual community that had fled fascism (among these was a well known portrait of Berthold Brecht). Stern would also marry the Argentinian photographer Horacio Coppola and in 1936 they would move to Argentina. She would play a major role in not just fostering a contemporary photographic movement in Bueno Aires – as well as across Argentina and South America – but in introducing European modernist photography’s ideas and approaches to the southern continent.
From 1940 onwards, Stern’s studio became a community focal point for a number of intellectuals and artists : the Madí art movement (also known as MADI, Grupo Madí or Arte Madí) drew inspiration and support from Stern and her activities in Buenos Aires. Their first major exhibition took place in Stern’s studio in 1945. The group was defined by both an anti fascist position as well as offering visual counterpoints to the government of Juan Perón, so Stern’s experience in Germany in opposition to a repressive, authoritarian government was both invaluable and helped shaped Argentinian culture (in an interesting historical moment, Perón would offer shelter in Argentina to some of the same nazis whose rise to power brought Stern to that country…).
It was at this time that Stern created the aforementioned Sueños [Dreams] series for the magazine Idilio.
From the Jewish Women’s Archive : “In 1948 Stern was offered the unusual assignment of providing photos for a column on the interpretation of dreams….The column, entitled “Psychoanalysis Will Help You,” was a response to dreams sent in by readers, mostly working-class women. It was written under the pseudonym Richard Rest by renowned sociologist Gino Germani, who later became a professor at Harvard University. The result was a series of about one hundred and fifty photomontages produced between 1948 and 1951 that show Stern’s avant-garde spirit. In these photomontages she portrays women’s oppression and submission in Argentine society with sarcastic and surreal images. The photomontage was an ideal way for Stern to express her ideas about the dominant values.”
Stern would became an Argentinian citizen in 1958.
Continuing in this very prolific manner, Stern engaged in a number of significant projects over the next few decades. These included producing a photographic map of Buenos Aires, working with Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes facilitating both exhibitions and workshops (from 1956 until her retirement in 1970), collaborating with a number of architectural studies and specifically the magazine Nuestra Arquitectura for an article on architect Amancio Williams, and teaching at the University of the Northeast, in Resistencia, Chaco (in the late 1950s).
“In 1964 she obtained a grant from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes and traveled through the northeast of Argentina, producing more than eight hundred photos portraying the lives, craftwork, and daily activities of the aboriginals of the region. It constitutes the most important photo archive on this subject in Argentina. She was interested in showing the poor living conditions of the aboriginal populations and also highlighting their craft-making skills.” (from the Jewish Women’s Archive).
In this manner, Stern was similar to previously featured Artist You Need To Know Graciela Iturbide in employing her lens as a socio historical spur to history.
In 1985 she retired from taking photographs (and from teaching and giving workshops). She passed away at the age of 95 in 1999, in Buenos Aires.
Significant exhibitions of her work include : Grete Stern, Photographies 1927-1980, at the Fundación San Telmo, Buenos Aires (1981), Grete Stern, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires (1988); Grete Stern, Portraits 1930-1950, Galerie Viviane Esders, Paris (1989); Dreams, Grete Stern, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia (1995); Grete Stern, Photographic work in Argentina, hosted by the Goethe Institut in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Germany, Colombia, and Ecuador (1997/8); and Grete Stern, The dreams, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, Halle, and Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen (1999).
Grete Stern’s artworks can be found in the following permanent collections: The Jewish Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum and The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Argentine photographer Sara Facio offered the following about Stern’s importance and impact: “Grete has influenced new generations [of photographers] in two ways. On one hand, with the importance she gives to form. Her photography is not improvised but well thought out. And second by her attitude to life. She is a woman who has been devoted to her vocation, during good times and bad, and young people admire that.”