Aenne Biermann

About the Artist

Aenne Biermann. Self-Portrait with Silver Ball. 1931. Gelatin silver print. Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg

A self-taught photographer, Aenne Biermann was born Anna Sibilla Sternfeld into a wealthy mercantile family in Goch, on the Lower Rhine, where she received an education in culture and music. In 1920 she married Herbert Joseph Biermann, a prosperous textile merchant and art lover whose family was a founding member of the Jewish community in Goch; following their wedding, they moved to the progressive town of Gera. The couple soon had two children, Helga (born 1921) and Gershon (born 1923), who were the photographer’s first subjects. An avid amateur mineralogist, it was through her collection of rocks that in 1926 she met the geologist Rudolf Hundt, who commissioned her to photograph his specimens the following year for his scientific work. Her photographs of minerals transformed her practice from the early personal views of her children to the close-up, direct studies of form that would define her photographs of plants and people that followed and make her a central figure in New Objectivity photography. Thus 1926 began a period of intense productivity for Biermann that lasted until her untimely death, from liver disease, at the age of thirty-five, in 1933. In those years, Biermann published in international photography journals and participated in numerous exhibitions, including a solo show in 1929 at the Kunstkabinett, Munich, as well as the influential exhibitions Fotografie der Gegenwart in Essen and Film und Foto in Stuttgart, the same year. This exposure led to art historian Franz Roh’s choice to feature her work in the monograph 60 Fotos: Aenne Biermann (1930), the second (and, ultimately, final) volume in his Fototek series, securing her place in the photographic discourse of the era.

—Mitra Abbaspour
Alternate Name(s) Anna Sibilla Sternefeld (Birth Name)

Meeting Points

Exhibitions Film und Foto, 1929
Foto der Gegenwart, 1929
Publications Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, 1917–31

Artist Chronology

March 3, 1898	Born At location: Aenne Biermann	Goch
Mid 1920–1933	Lives in Gera At location: Aenne Biermann	Gera
1921	Makes her first photographs of her daughter At location: Aenne Biermann	Gera
1927–29	Works on commission for geologist Rudolf Hundt; photographs plants and portraits At location: Aenne Biermann	Gera
1928	Franz Roh publishes an article about Aenne Biermann's work in Das Kunstblatt Affiliated: Aenne Biermann Contributor: Franz Roh	Weimar
1928–33	Member of the Deutsche Werkbund At location: Aenne Biermann	Gera
January 20–February 17, 1929	Fotografie der Gegenwart at Museum Folkwang Kestner Gesellschaft v.V, Königstrasse 8, Hannover March 10–April 7, 1929 Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf, Lützowstrasse 32, Berlin April 20–May 20, 1929 Whitechapel Art Gallery, London June 6–29, 1929 Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt July 7–August 8, 1929 Leipziger Kunstverein, Augustusplatz 6, Leipzig August 18–September 8, 1929 Lichthof des Neuen Rathauses, Dresden September 15–October 6, 1929 Kunstverein, Rostock October 20-November 10, 1929 am Adolf-Mittag-See, Städtisches Ausstellungsamt, Magdeburg November 28–December 19, 1929 Landesgewerbeanstalt, Kaiserslautern February 23–March 23, 1930 Vereinigung Göttinger Kunstfreunde, Göttingen May 18–June 8, 1930 Participant: Berenice Abbott, Herbert Bayer, Aenne Biermann, Max Burchartz, Florence Henri, Lotte Jacobi, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, El Lissitzky, Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky), László Moholy-Nagy, Walter A. Peterhans, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Hans Richter, August Sander, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), Lucia Moholy, Karl Blossfeldt, Erich Comeriner, Eli Lotar, Oskar Nerlinger, Robert Petschow, Frieda Gertrud Riess, Sasha Stone, Hans Finsler, Paul Edmund Hahn, Cami Stone	Essen
April 20–May 20, 1929	Neue Typografie at Staatliche Künstlerbibliothek Participant: Herbert Bayer, Aenne Biermann, Max Burchartz, César Domela-Nieuwenhuis, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Nerlinger	Berlin
May 18–July 7, 1929	Internationale Ausstellung des Deutschen Werkbunds Film und Foto (FiFo) at Städtische Ausstellungshallen Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich August 28–September 22, 1929 Im Lichthof des Ehemaligen Kunstgewerbemuseums, Prinz-Albrechs-Strasse 7, Berlin October 19–November 17, 1929 Stadtmuseum, Danzig (dates unknown) Österreichisches Museum, Vienna February 20–March 31, 1930 Agram, Zagreb April 5–14, 1930 Münchner Bund/Verein Ausstellungspark München E.V. (as part of Internationale Ausstellung. Das Lichtbild), Munich June 5–September 7, 1930 Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo April 1931 Asahi Shimbun, Osaka July 1–7, 1931 Participant: Berenice Abbott, Herbert Bayer, Aenne Biermann, Anton Bruehl, Francis Bruguière, Max Burchartz, Florence Henri, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Helmar Lerski, El Lissitzky, Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky), László Moholy-Nagy, Walter A. Peterhans, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Hans Richter, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Charles Sheeler, Edward Steichen, Maurice Tabard, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), Edward Weston, Lucia Moholy, Werner Rohde, George Hoyningen-Huene, Gustav Klutsis, Karl Blossfeldt, Heinz Loew, Erich Comeriner, Semyon Fridlyand, Roman Karmen, Eli Lotar, Oskar Nerlinger, Robert Petschow, Sasha Stone, Dziga Vertov, Yva (Else Simon), Willy Zielke, Irene Bayer-Hecht, Hans Finsler, Cami Stone Organizer: El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, Hans Richter, Edward Steichen, Edward Weston, Dziga Vertov Visitor: Alexander Hackenschmied	Stuttgart
1930	Franz Roh publishes 60 Fotografien, a monograph on Aenne Biermann, as part of the Fototek series Affiliated: Aenne Biermann Contributor: Franz Roh	Berlin
June–September 1930	Das Lichtbild exhibition Participant: Aenne Biermann, Bill Brandt, Max Burchartz, César Domela-Nieuwenhuis, Florence Henri, Lotte Jacobi, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Helmar Lerski, Walter A. Peterhans, August Sander, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), Edward Weston, Lucia Moholy, Werner Rohde, Franz Roh, Marianne Breslauer, Alexander Hackenschmied, Edmund Kesting, Jean Moral, Willy Zielke, Lore Feininger, Hans Finsler	Munich
January 11–February 9, 1931	Die Neue Fotografie at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Participant: Berenice Abbott, Aenne Biermann, Florence Henri, Helmar Lerski, Werner Rohde, Hans Finsler	Basel
1932–33	Member of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner At location: Aenne Biermann	Gera
July 2–31, 1932	Exposition internationale de la photographie at the Palais des Beaux-Arts Participant: Aenne Biermann, André Kertész, Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky), Franz Roh, Lee Miller, Sasha Stone Organizer: Cami Stone	Brussels
January 14, 1933	Dies At location: Aenne Biermann	Gera