"Renate Schottelius, New York"

gelatin silver print on Wephota barytha paper from the original negative from the estate, Akademie der Künste, Berlin

stamp verso

Ellen Auerbach was a German photographer who was part of the legendary Ringl + Pit photo agency, known for its innovative and influential approach to advertising and portrait photography. Pictured is dancer Renate Schottelius on the roof of a skyscraper, Auerbach's home during her time in New York. The 1954 image was taken fairly near the end of her photographic caree.
This photograph represents an iconic work in Ellen Auerbach's life and shows her typical style, which combines elements of traditional studio photography with a modern, spontaneous aesthetic. Photographer Barbara Klemm, a longtime friend of Ellen Auerbach, has chosen this work as representative of the period of Auerbach's life for a Griffelkunst portfolio from which this work is taken.
Matthias Flügge writes in the accompanying text to the Griffelkunst portfolio: "Ellen Auerbach, the Jewish artist, expelled from Germany in her late twenties, left homeless in Palestine, and then went to New York via London: an emigrant fate that has occurred countless times. The life of a woman who experienced losses and, as the pictures show, also many happy days. Photography was not her only purpose in life, it was a means in her life, not the end. With the help of her pictures she assured herself of reality, a process that was important at times, less so at others. Ellen Auerbach led an artistic life, even if art was not always created. This life, the inner freedom, was visible to her, in the counterpart and in the films and interviews that were made about her and with her. She was a citizen of the world, and she was searching for a transcendental existence, one might think, for a home beyond material reality. This is not apparent from the pictures. They are entirely worldly, as if they were created only to prove the real existence of the world."
(Christoph Fuchs)