Lotte Laserstein F540

Bukowskis welcomes you to this theme auction including 14 works by Lotte Laserstein, whose artistic career has been brought to attention this spring with the exhibition ‘Ett delat liv’, 11 November 2023 – 14 April 2024 at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. The exhibition, which was first shown at Moderna Museet in Malmö from 6 May to 1 October 2023 and curated by Anna-Carola Krausse and Iris Müller-Westermann, was the largest exhibition of Laserstein's art in the Nordic region to date.

Lotte Laserstein (1898–1993) was born in East Prussia but grew up in present-day Gdansk and Berlin. In 1927, she graduated from the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts, as one of the first female students, and immediately achieved great success. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, her promising career was interrupted because, in accordance with the ideology of the time, she was categorised as 3/4 Jewish (her grandparents were Jewish but her parents were not). As a result, she became increasingly excluded from the art scene.

In 1937, she had the opportunity to exhibit at the Galerie Moderne in Stockholm, which allowed her to leave her homeland. The exhibition went ahead and she was able to stay in Sweden on a three-month visa.

In Stockholm, Laserstein made new friends, some of whom helped her enter into a sham marriage which gave her Swedish citizenship. Laserstein made a new life for herself in Stockholm, supporting herself mainly by commissioning portraits, which became her main source of income. During her fifty-six years in Sweden, she created thousands of works, including drawings.

Later in life, Laserstein was rediscovered. From being an artist living on Öland, she entered the international spotlight thanks to an English art dealer and an exhibition in London in 1987. Several exhibitions followed, even after her death six years later. Major art institutions bought up her most important paintings, which she had kept hanging in her small apartments throughout her life.

In 2003, Laserstein was also recognised in Germany with an exhibition at the Museum Ephraim-Palais in Berlin. In Sweden, her work was first recognised in a memorial exhibition at Kalmar Museum in 2004, then at the Jewish Museum and later at Bror Hjorth's House in Uppsala.