Marta Astfalck-Vietz: photographs 1924-1936

Tubb, Katherine Anne (2011) Marta Astfalck-Vietz: photographs 1924-1936. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The Berlin photographer Marta Astfalck-Vietz was active in the Weimar Republic, between 1924 and 1936. Her work was re-discovered in 1989 by the curator Janos Frecot, who staged a solo exhibition of her work in the Berlinische Galerie in 1991, and her archive, comprising just over 400 prints, is now held there. Since this show, the work of Marta Astfalck-Vietz has rarely been exhibited. In both German and Anglo-American scholarship it has received sporadic attention; the only text devoted to her work is still the catalogue to Frecot’s 1991 show. This thesis presents her photography to an Anglo-American audience, not as a compensatory exercise in retrieving a forgotten woman artist, but as a contribution to the existing body of literature on women in the Weimar era. Like other female artists of the period, Marta Astfalck-Vietz negotiated between her private experiences of life in the Republic and representations of its social and political tensions, which were circulated in novels, in films, on the stage, and in magazines. Her photographs address the issues of sex gender and race that preoccupy historians of Weimar Germany, confirming, confounding, and expanding our knowledge of the era.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Due to copyright restrictions the full text of this thesis cannot be made available online. Access to the printed version is available.
• Keywords: photography, history of art, women artists, Weimar, Germany
• Subjects: N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR; T Technology > TR Photography
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Culture and Creative Arts > History of Art
• Supervisor's Name: Lewer, Dr. Deborah
• Date of Award: 2011
• Depositing User: Miss Katherine Tubb
• Unique ID: glathesis:2011-4385
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 14 Jun 2013 15:51
• Last Modified: 19 May 2021 14:00
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/4385