Sitting Nude, Half Length

1898 Preußisch Holland/Königsberg - 1993 Kalmar/Schweden was rediscovered by the art market in 2010 when her masterpiece "Evening over Potsdam'' sold for almost half a million euros at Sotheby's London. Beforehand she had been known mainly to art experts and a few dealers. Afterwards her recognition as one of the most important women artists of the 20th century progressed and her works increased considerably in price, fuelled by Museum exhibitions and Museum purchases. In 2021 she was lately to be seen in the exhibition "Close up" at Fondation Beyeler in Bale next to works by Berthe Morisot, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Frida Kahlo, Cindy Sherman and Elizabeth Peyton.

Primarily the market focussed on the rare works from her early years in Berlin (1920-1937), the  portraits of the "new women'' of the 1920s and the nude paintings of her model friend Traute Rose. These works are fantastic, metaphors of their time and at the same moment astonishingly modern. Furthermore the tragedy of the artist's biography can be sensed in them. Laserstein was one of the first women admitted at the academy of art of Berlin, had a very successful start, sold paintings, painted masterpieces and was finally rudely stopped by the Nazis, persecuted and forced to emigrate to Sweden. Although she was lucky to escape, she shared the sorrows and all the problems of emigration with the artists of the lost generation. Her mother, who stayed with her sister in Berlin, died in a concentration camp.

Lotte Laserstein survived. She was a fighter. During her 55 years in Sweden she produced a large oeuvre, participated in 76 exhibitions and succeeded in living on her art. Portraits of children, landscapes and flower still life replaced the nudes and portraits emancipated women. An extensive exhibition of her Swedish works is in preparation and will take place in 2023. It is worthwhile to focus on Laserstein's Swedish period, too.