Elfriede Stegemeyer (1908–1988) was a German photographer, artist, and poet whose interdisciplinary approach positioned her as a unique voice within the cultural avant-garde of early 20th-century Europe. Initially trained in painting and graphic design at the Bauhaus-adjacent School of Applied Arts in Berlin, Stegemeyer soon shifted her focus to photography, developing a visual language that merged Surrealism, Constructivism, and poetic abstraction. Her close associations with figures such as Raoul Hausmann and members of the Novembergruppe and Dada movements informed her experimental ethos, particularly her interest in photograms, double exposures, and textual collage. She contributed to avant-garde journals and photographic exhibitions in the 1920s and 1930s, though her work has often been overshadowed by her male contemporaries. Notably, Stegemeyer’s photographs reflect a highly personal and lyrical sensibility, incorporating botanical forms, objects, and hand-drawn annotations, suggesting affinities with the visual poetry of her friend and collaborator Oskar Pastior. Following the Second World War, she turned increasingly to writing, and her later work bridges photographic experimentation with literary modernism. Only recently have scholars begun to reassess her contribution to both photographic history and intermedia art, situating her as a critical figure in the history of German experimental photography and a rare female voice within the otherwise male-dominated photographic avant-garde.
Elfriede Stegemeyer
Portraits
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Genealogy of Elfriede Stegemeyer
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