Trude Fleischmann

TRUDE FLEISCHMANN (Vienna, 1895-USA, 1990).
"Portrait of the actor Hermann Thimig".
Photography.
Signed in the lower margin; identification of the sitter on the back.
Measures: 12 x 8 cm.
Photographer of Austrian origin. Trude Fleischmann was born into a Jewish family in Vienna. She studied art in Paris for a short period. Between 1913 and 1916, she trained at HGBLuVA, a training institute for visual communication in Vienna. She did her professional internship with the photographer Hermmann Schieberth (1876-1948). In the early 1920s, he opened his own studio near the Vienna City Hall. He quickly became one of the most sought-after photographers in the capital, taking pictures in his studio of the most prominent personalities of art and culture, such as Peter Altenberg, Gustinus Ambrosi, Alban Berg, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Karl Kraus, Hedy. Lamarr, Adolf Loos, Tilly Losch, Alfred Polgar, Max Reinhardt, the Thimig family of actors, Hilde Wagener, Bruno Walter, Paula Wessely, Grete Wiesenthal and Stefan Zweig. She also takes pictures of dance poses and is best known for her photographs, once described as scandalous, of the dancer Claire Bauroff. Her photos are published in magazines and periodicals such as Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, Die Bühne, Die Dame, Moderne Welt , Wiener Bilder , Wiener Magazin and Wiener Mode. In the mid-1930s, he turned to landscape photography in the style of Heimat . After the Anschluss, he managed to flee Austria in September 1938 with the help of the American photographer Marion Post Wolcott, whose sister Helen was a fellow student. He took refuge first in Paris, then in London and finally went to New York. He opened a photography studio in 1940, located in Manhattan, where, as in Vienna, he portrayed artists and intellectuals, including Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi , Albert Einstein , Otto von Habsburg , Oskar Kokoschka , Lotte Lehmann and Arturo Toscanini. It is believed that many of his photographs (up to 41 plate negatives) were lost due to his flight from Germany and the destruction of his studio during World War II. However, the remaining photographs found their way into renowned collections including MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the Leo Baeck Institute and the Getty Center. In Austria, the Vienna Museum, the Theatre Museum and the photographic collection of the Bank of Austria hold his photographs.