Li Osborne

Li Osborne (* 1883 in Mainz as Luise Wolf , † 1968 in Brè ) was a German photographer.

In the 1920s she made a name for herself as a portrait and theater photographer . She had her first photo exhibition in Copenhagen in 1920 . From 1922 she ran a studio in Baden-Baden , in 1925 she moved to Munich . Among other things, he created portraits of Bertolt Brecht and Sybille Binder , which are now in the Folkwang Museum. A picture of Rabindranath Thakur is in the holdings of the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 1926 Li Osborne was represented at the German Photographic Exhibition in Frankfurt am Main. After the National Socialists came to power, work was made impossible for Jewish women photographers. Like numerous female colleagues, including Ellen Auerbach , Grete Stern , Lucia Moholy and Marianne Breslauer , Li Osborne decided to emigrate. From the mid-1930s she lived in the Fex Valley and later in Locarno . In 1948 she moved to Colchester , but spent most of the summer months in Switzerland.

Li Osborne was married three times. From 1907 to 1913 with the officer Leo Karl Benecke, from 1920 to 1929 with the psychiatrist Walter Osborne and from 1930 with William Dodge Hutchinson. In her first marriage she had a daughter who died at the age of four.

various

On September 1, 1923, she met Arthur Schnitzler in Celerina / Schlarigna , who noted in his diary:

"To]. d [em]. N [eight times]. in the Rocco house, where Dr. Osborne lives with friends. The landlord, whose wife and children are away, shows me the beautiful, strange house. A Munich professor and wife also present. Dr. Osborne shows me some of her excellent portraits (Hauptmann et al.) "To give me courage". I found it difficult to follow the conversation. "

- Arthur Schnitzler : Diary, September 1, 1923

literature

• Ute Eskildsen (Ed.): Taking photos meant taking part: women photographers of the Weimar Republic . Richter, Düsseldorf 1994. ISBN 3-928762-26-5
• Klaus Honnef, Frank Weyers: And they… had to leave Germany. Photographers and their pictures 1928–1997 . PROAG, Cologne 1997. ISBN 3-932584-02-3

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arthur Schnitzler: Diary 1879-1931. Published by the commission for literary forms of use of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, chairman: Werner Welzig . Vienna: Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1981–2000. Volume: 1923-1926. (With the participation of Peter Michael Braunwarth, Susanne Pertlik and Reinhard Urbach, 1995)