200 Days, 200 Photo Books

Erna Lendvai-Dircksen:
Das Deutsche Volksgesicht 1

Drei Masken Verlag, Berlin, 1932.

“I knew nothing about Lendvai-Dircksen when I found this – her first book in fact. And neither did anybody else as my search for information in the classic photo dictionaries or histories certainly didn’t yield much. If anything at all, then only that she worked for the Nazis and therefore should not be considered a serious artist. However, the beautiful images of old, ugly and weather-beaten peasants’ faces in this book contradicted these statements and I began a research on which I based a thesis for my degree in art history. Lendvai-Dircksen’s life and work of course turned out to be a much more complex story about a very successful portrait photographer of the Berlin cultural upper class. As a twice-divorced single mother she had to sustain her family under the conditions of  “berufsverbot” where you would not be able to get film unless you complied with Nazi regulations. Her studio work thus supported her personal interest in the unpolished faces of the countryside and she published several books during the Nazi rule.”

Jens Friis, Assist. dir. & editor Museet for Fotokunst & Katalog, Odense, Denmark