Berlin/London: The Lost Photographs of Gerty Simon

Renée Sintenis (1888-1965), Berlin, c. 1929-1932. Sculptor and medalist © The Bernard Simon Estate, Wiener Library Collections.

The Wiener Library, Bloomsbury, London

The Wiener Library’s summer 2019 exhibition showcases the remarkable work of German Jewish photographer Gerty (Gertrud) Simon, and features many of her original prints from the 1920s and 1930s. Simon was a once-prominent photographer who captured many important political and artistic figures in Weimar Berlin, including Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Liebermann and Albert Einstein. In the 1930s, as a refugee from Nazism in Britain, Simon rapidly re-established her studio, and portrayed many significant individuals there, such as Sir Kenneth Clark, Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Aneurin Bevan.

A collection donated to The Wiener Library in 2016 contained hundreds of Gerty Simon’s original prints, along with documentary evidence of her life and work. For the first time in eighty years, the work of this pioneering photographer will be brought to public attention in this exhibition.

10.00am – 5.00pm