Olga Oppenheimer (9 July 1886 – 4 July 1941) was a German Expressionist artist.

Education

Oppenheimer trained under

Paul Sérusier Paul Sérusier (9 November 1864 – 7 October 1927) was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabis movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism. Education Sérusier was born in Paris. He studied a ...

in Paris in 1909. Thereafter, she trained in private studios in Munich and Dachau. Oppenheimer's father encouraged her pursuit of art and provided her with a studio, which was called the Gereonshaus, in his office building.

Career

Oppenheimer was a co-founder of the

Gereonsklub The Gereonsklub was an avant-garde artists' association in Cologne in the years immediately prior to World War I. Its founding members were the artists Olga Oppenheimer, Emmy Worringer, and Franz M. Jansen. Later members included Marta Worringe ...

, an art school and major venue for modern art in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

, Germany, in 1911. The Gereonsklub became a center of contemporary

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

art in the Rhineland, presenting

Der Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider) is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May ...

Franz Marc Franz Moritz Wilhelm Marc (8 February 1880 – 4 March 1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later b ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...

and others for the first time in Cologne. Oppenheimer's artistic career was brief, spanning the years 1907 to 1916. Only ten of her works survive, five of which are illustrations. Olga Oppenheimer Bertha Oppenheim 1907

Oppenheimer's work was exhibited in the International Sonderbund in Cologne in 1912 along with the work of two other women artists,

Marie Laurencin Marie Laurencin (31 October 1883 – 8 June 1956) was a French painter and printmaker. She became an important figure in the Parisian Avant-garde#:~:text=The avant-garde (/ˌ,art, culture, or society., avant-garde as a member of the Cubism, Cubist ...

and

Paula Modersohn-Becker Paula Modersohn-Becker (8 February 1876 – 20 November 1907) was a German Expressionist painter of the late 19th and early 20th century. Her work is noted for its intensity and its blunt, unapologetic humanity, and for the many self-portraits th ...

. The next year, in 1913, she participated in an exhibition of Rhenish Expressionists at Walter Cohen's Bookstore, put together by August Macke, an influential Expressionist painter himself. Olga Oppenheimer Mal- und Zeichenschule 1912

Olga Oppenheimer Mal- und Zeichenschule 1912

Oppenheimer was the only female German artist who participated in the

Armory Show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...

, which opened in New York City in 1913 and traveled to Boston and Chicago. She contributed a series of six woodcuts entitled ''Van Zanten's Happy Time,'' which was displayed in the same gallery as prints by

Edvard Munch Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images. His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...

. After 1916, her health began to decline, and she was committed to a sanatorium in 1918. Her career was interrupted by severe depression. In 1918, she entered the Waltbreitbach Sanatorium, a psychiatric institution where she spent twenty years of her life. Oppenheimer was deported in 1941 to the

Lublin Reservation The Nisko Plan was an operation to deport Jews to the Lublin District of the General Governorate of occupied Poland in 1939. Organized by Nazi Germany, the plan was cancelled in early 1940. The idea for the expulsion and resettlement of the Jews ...

, Poland and died of

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

at the camp on 4 July 1941.

Personal life

In 1913, Oppenheimer married Adolf Worringer, the brother of her friend

Emmy Worringer Emmy Worringer (1878–1961) was a German artist and cofounder of the Gereonsklub, an avant-garde artists' association in Cologne in the years immediately preceding World War I. Worringer studied art in Dachau as well as at the Academy in Munich; ...

. They had two sons and later divorced.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oppenheimer, Olga 1886 births 1941 deaths Deaths from typhus German women painters 20th-century German women artists German expatriates in France