Artist
Else Thalemann
(1901 - 1985) German
Biography
Else Thalemann was born into a well-to-do family in Berlin. She learned photography in a commercial studio, and by 1930 had set up her own studio and darkroom in her family's house. She made advertising photographs for the Berlin-based photo agency Mauritius as well as landscapes and scenes of everyday life. During this period, Thalemann became friends with Ernst Fuhrmann, a writer of books on biology, philosophy, religion, and other subjects. Fuhrmann was assembling an enormous photographic archive for what he termed his "biosophical" investigations into the structure and forms of plants, employing talented photographers such as Albert Renger-Patzsch, Lotte Jacobi, and, for a period in the thirties, Thalemann. When Fuhrmann emigrated to the United States in 1938, Thalemann effectively abandoned photography. During World War II, Allied bombs destroyed her Berlin studio, including most o her negatives.
Phillips, Christopher, and Vanessa Rocco, eds. Modernist Photography: Selections from the Daniel Cowin Collection. New York: International Center of Photography and Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2005, p. 114.
References:
Else Thalemann: Industrie- und Pflanzenphotographien der 20er und 30er Jahre. Berlin: Das Verborgene Museum, 1993.
Rhein, Christina. "Else Thalemann (1901–1984), Fotografin." In Frauenmosaik: Frauenbiographien aus dem Berliner Stadtbezirk Treptow-Köpenick. Berlin: Trafo, 2001.
Phillips, Christopher, and Vanessa Rocco, eds. Modernist Photography: Selections from the Daniel Cowin Collection. New York: International Center of Photography and Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 2005, p. 114.
References:
Else Thalemann: Industrie- und Pflanzenphotographien der 20er und 30er Jahre. Berlin: Das Verborgene Museum, 1993.
Rhein, Christina. "Else Thalemann (1901–1984), Fotografin." In Frauenmosaik: Frauenbiographien aus dem Berliner Stadtbezirk Treptow-Köpenick. Berlin: Trafo, 2001.