Germaine Krull Captured 1920s Women in Intimate, Radical

In 1922, the photographer Germaine Krull landed, tired and ill, in Berlin, after being expelled from the Soviet Union. U.S.S.R. authorities had accused her of harboring anti-Bolshevik sentiments, imprisoned her, and forced her to endure a fake execution. Her lover, Samuel Levit, had traveled with her to Moscow, but eventually abandoned her.

When Krull arrived in Berlin, the city was enjoying a creative renaissance, thanks to the rise of German Expressionist painting, Bauhaus design, Jungian philosophy, and Langian film. Krull’s new city matched her bohemian nature; she was the embodiment of the neue frau, or a modern, independent woman who challenged the traditional demarcation of gender roles.

“In that period, I wanted to make something new; I thought of taking some blatant photographs, perhaps galant,” Krull reflected in her memoirs, referring to “galanterie,” an elegant Enlightenment aesthetic with erotic connotations.

Germaine Krull

Portrait of Germaine Krull, Berlin, 1922

"Germaine Krull (1897-1985). A Photographer's

After a stop-start career put on hold with her arrest by the U.S.S.R.’s secret police, Krull’s years in Berlin and then Paris offered a creative reawakening. Krull’s practice was as restive as her spirit: She used her portable Icarette camera to take double exposures of bustling cities; dizzying, abstracted photos of industrial structures; and loosely narrative, salacious same-sex nude scenes that entirely ignored the viewer’s gaze.

Along with her work in fashion, photojournalism, and advertising, Krull became a leading figure of the experimental New Vision (or Neue Optik) movement founded by Alexander Rodchenko and László Moholy-Nagy. Yet like many women photographers of the 20th century (including her contemporaries Dora Maar and Lee Miller), Krull has not received the acclaim of her male counterparts, such as Man Ray and André Kertész. A 2015 exhibition at Jeu de Paume in Paris and its accompanying book rightfully positioned her as a pioneer of the modern photo essay and photo book, and as a visionary of the avant-garde

The gentle curves of skin

Germaine Krull

Nudes , 1924

"Germaine Krull (1897-1985). A Photographer's

Krull was constantly in motion, from her nomadic childhood to her later sojourns around Europe, Africa, and Asia. Born in East Prussia in 1897, her family eventually settled in Munich in 1912, where she studied photography and opened her own portrait studio in 1919.

Krull’s social circle included artists and intellectuals linked with left-wing politics. One was Kurt Eisner, who became the prime minister of the brief and unrecognized People’s State of Bavaria during the German Revolution. Eisner was assassinated the year Krull found her footing with her portrait studio. The next year, the photographer was exiled from Munich for smuggling Communists across the German-Austrian border.

With her studio work on hold, Krull made her way with Levit, her lover, to Moscow, where she heard Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky speak. Including her time imprisoned, she remained in the U.S.S.R. for a year before she was ultimately expelled.

Germaine Krullj

French Cancan, 1929/1929

Contemporary Works/Vintage Works

Berlin offered recovery and revitalization for Krull, who was traumatized by her experience abroad. She found familiarity in a new role managing a photography studio, and began a series of nude studies and self-portraits. She often photographed her sister Berthe, her friend Freia, and a third woman whose name remains unknown.

Between 1922 and 1924, Krull published two portfolios of work, “Atke” (“Nudes”) and “Les Amies” (“Girlfriends”): the former a playful collection of sultry poses, and the latter an explicit series of a lesbian encounter. Though Berlin was a progressive city, Krull’s work teetered on the city’s legal line between obscenity and art. At the time, hundreds of thousands of postcard-sized erotic images were clandestinely traded in Germany; as Clare I. Rogan notes in the book The New Woman International (2011), Krull deliberately chose a print-size, canvas-textured cream paper to differentiate her images as a higher art form.