Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler
AN EXCEPTIONAL ARTIST
Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (Dresden 1899–1940 Pirna) is a significant artistic voice of the early twentieth century. Her dynamic, empathetic visual language is without comparison in the art of New Objectivity.
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She leaves home at the age of sixteen, and is active as ‘Nikolaus Wächtler’ in Dresden avant-garde circles from 1918 onwards. Friends of the headstrong ‘Laus’ include the painters Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller and Otto Griebel, the poet Rudolf Adrian Dietrich and the Dadaist Johannes Baader. Lohse-Wächtler’s years in Hamburg, from 1925 to 1931, are a personally stressful but artistically highly productive time.
Wretched living circumstances and a failed marriage lead to psychiatric problems and in 1929 to hospitalisation for the first time. But Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler wrests powerful works of art from her delicate mental state. She confidently enters even male worlds and restricted areas, painting in the port and St. Pauli, and creating atmospheric scenes of brothels and pubs, unconventional portraits and haunting self-portraits in quick succession.
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