Fighting for Visibility: Woman Artists in the Nationalgalerie Before 1919

Exactly 100 years ago, the first women were allowed to participate in regular art courses at the Berliner Kunstakademie. While such a late date is no cause for celebration, it nonetheless offers the opportunity to consider the works of these women painters and sculptors, who triumphed against adversity to break into the art world and succeeded in having their works included in the Nationalgalerie’s collection. Among them are Sabine Lepsius’s self-conscious self-portrait, Maria Slavona’s impressionistic view of the houses of Montmartre, and Caroline Bardua’s spectacular paintings. Even more than the painters, the sculptors encountered opposition to their artistic activities. The powerful works of the German-American sculptor Elisabeth Ney and the Berlin artists Kathe Kollwitz and Renee Sintenis gave the lie to such prejudices. Alongside these well-known names, the catalogue and exhibition also invites visitors to discover lesser known figures, some of whom are being shown in the Alte Nationalgalerie for the first time.