Germaine Krull. Untitled. 1923–24. Gelatin silver print, 6 3/4 x 8 13/16" (17.1 x 22.4 cm). Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Thomas Walther. © Estate Germaine Krull, Museum Folkwang, Essen

“I would like to do something unexpected, photographs without embarrassment, amorous photos, perhaps.”

Germaine Krull

Germaine Krull was a pioneer in the fields of avant-garde photomontage, the photographic book, and photojournalism, and she embraced both commercial and artistic loyalties. Born in Wilda-Poznań, East Prussia, in 1897, Krull lived an extraordinary life lasting nine decades on four continents—she was the prototype of the edgy, sexually liberated Neue Frau (New Woman), considered an icon of modernity and a close cousin of the French garçonne and the American flapper. She had a peripatetic childhood before her family settled in Munich in 1912. She studied photography from 1916 to 1918 at Bayerische Staatslehranstalt für Lichtbildwesen (Instructional and Research Institute for Photography), and in 1919 opened her own portrait studio. Her early engagement with left-wing political activism led to her expulsion from Munich. Then, on a visit to Russia in 1921, she was incarcerated for her counterrevolutionary support of the Free French cause against Lenin. In 1926, she settled in Paris, where she became friends with artists Sonia and Robert Delaunay and intellectuals André Malraux, Jean Cocteau, Colette, and André Gide, who were also subjects of her photographic portraits.

Krull’s artistic breakthrough began in 1928, when she was hired by the nascent VU magazine, the first major French illustrated weekly. Along with photographers André Kertész and Éli Lotar, she developed a new form of reportage rooted in a freedom of expression and closeness to her subjects that resulted in intimate close-ups, all facilitated by her small-format Icarette, a portable, folding bed camera. During this period, she published the portfolio, Metal (Métal) (1928), a collection of 64 pictures of modernist iron giants, including cranes, railways, power generators, the Rotterdam transporter bridge, and the Eiffel Tower, shot in muscular close-ups and from vertiginous angles. Krull participated in the influential Film und Foto, or Fifo, exhibition (1929–30), which was accompanied by two books, Franz Roh’s and Jan Tschichold’s Foto-Auge (Photo-Eye) and Werner Gräff’s Es kommt der neue Fotograf! (Here Comes the New Photographer!). Fifo marked the emergence of a new critical theory of photography that placed Krull at the forefront of Neues Sehen or Neue Optik (New Vision) photography, a new direction rooted in exploring fully the technical possibilities of the photographic medium through a profusion of unconventional lens-based and darkroom techniques. After the end of World War II, she traveled to Southeast Asia, and then moved to India, where, after a lifetime dedicated to recording some of the major upheavals of the twentieth century, she decided to live as a recluse among Tibetan monks.

Note: Opening quote is from Germaine Krul’s manuscript, La Vie mène la danse, typescript, 1981, p. 106, Essen, Folkwang Museum, Nachlass Germaine Krull, cited in Krull, Germaine, and Michel Frizot, Germaine Krull (Paris: Éditions Hazan, 2015), 25.

Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator, Department of Photography, 2016

Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Germaine Luise Krull (20 November 1897 – 31 July 1985) was a photographer, political activist, and hotel owner. Her nationality has been categorized as German, French, and Dutch, but she spent years in Brazil, Republic of the Congo, Thailand, and India. Described as "an especially outspoken example" of a group of early 20th-century female photographers who "could lead lives free from convention", she is best known for photographically illustrated books such as her 1928 portfolio Métal.
Wikidata
Q69776
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Getty record
Introduction
Born in Wilda, Prussia, now a part of Poland.
Nationalities
French, Dutch, German, Polish
Gender
Female
Roles
Artist, Photographer
Name
Germaine Krull
Ulan
500003762
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

14 works online

Exhibitions

Publications

  • Our Selves: Photographs by Women Artists Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 152 pages
  • Photography at MoMA: 1920 to 1960 Hardcover, 416 pages
  • OBJECT:PHOTO. Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909-1949 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 400 pages
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