Self-Portrait in the Studio on Friedrichsruher Straße, probably 1927

Lotte Laserstein

Narrator: Lotte Laserstein graduated from the art academy in the spring of 1927. She had been training for five years. Now she had to make her mark as a painter in Berlin, an international hub of the arts. That summer she moved into her first personal studio. The attic space with wide windows on the western edge of the city center was to be her refuge for the next three years.

Her “Self-Portrait in the Studio on Friedrichsruher Straße”, probably painted soon after she moved in, does not yet show her in the pose of a professional artist, which she adopted not much later in the paintings “In My Studio” and “Self Portrait with a Cat”. In summer clothes, her head slightly tilted to one side, she seems a little skeptical as she gazes at the beholder and at the same time into a mirror. What will her future bring? Is she on the right path? The background can be seen as a metaphor: the panorama spread out below her is a huge construction site. Just as the metropolis is expanding, the painter is maturing and taking shape.