Frieda Riess

 Frieda Riess, Self-Portrait, 1922

Frieda Riess, born in 1890, came from a German-Jewish merchant’s family that lived in the Western Prussian town of Czarnikau (now Carnkov in Poland) in the province of Poznán, moving to Berlin in the 1890s. In Berlin, she attended the “Photographische Lehranstalt” of the Lette Verein (she later inspired Marianne Breslauer to enroll there too). After her sudies she ran a prestigious studio on Kurfürstendamm, from 1918 to 1932. 

Frieda Riess, The Painter Xenia Boguslawskaja, 1922

Riess’ marriage to the poet and journalist Rudolf Leonhard at the beginning of the 1920s led to contact with his friends and acquaintances among theatre people, actresses and actors, including Walter Hasenclever, Tilla Durieux, Gerhart Hauptmann, Ivan and Claire Goll, which proved productive for her portrait work. This group extended to include dancers, music-hall stars and fine artists: Anna Pavlova, Mistinguett, Lil Dagover, Renée Sintenis, Max Liebermann and Xenia Boguslawskaja. Boxers and, above all, representatives of the old aristocracy, diplomats, politicians and bankers associated in the illustrious circle as well. Riess travelled to Paris, London and Rome, where she moved in similar literary and aristocratic circles. 

 

 

 Frieda Riess, Claire Goll,1926

Like her colleagues Hugo Erfurth, Madame D´Ora, Lotte Jacobi and Edward Steichen, Riess became a master of the advanced art of portraiture. The solo exhibition of 177 portraits in Alfred Flechtheim’s gallery in 1925 played a decisive part in this appreciation of the photographer. Flechtheim was one of the leading collectors and dealers in modern art during the 1920s. “I have asked Rieß for an exhibition of her photographs, because she creates art using lenses and rubber balls”, Flechtheim wrote in the catalogue. At that time it was somewhat surprising for one of Berlin’s leading art dealers to show photographs, and the fact that he refers to photography as art invited particular attention. 

 Frieda Riess, Gottfried Benn, 1924

Auf die Platten die Iche

tuschend mit Hilfe des Lichts, 

die Gestalten, die Striche

Ihres - Linsengerichts.

Gottfried Benn (with whom she had a short affair) wrote this ironic attack on her portrait art in 1924, the French painter Marie Laurencin gushed praise in Paris, and the writer Vita Sackville-West sent enthusiastic accounts back to London of the circle that gathered for tea in Riess’ studio ("Shifty figures between exquisite portraits" she wrote to Virginia Woolf). Riess' nude shots - the male nudes of boxers in particular - reflect the erotically charged atmosphere in the studio, which became an exclusive meeting place at exhibition openings. 

Frieda Riess, The Boxer Erich Brandl, 1925

Since 1930 Frieda Riess had a liaison with the French ambassador to Berlin, Pierre de Margerie, whom she followed to Paris in 1932. There, her creative photography obviously came to a halt. As yet, no works from that period have been found, and even biographical traces disappeared into near obscurity. From 1940 to 1945, she survived the German occupation of Paris in seclusion, and died there in the mid 1950s.

Walter Rheiner - Cocain

 Conrad Felixmüller, Death of the Poet Walter Rheiner, 1925

Walter Rheiner (1895-1925) was born in Cologne. He began a training as a businessman in Liege, Paris and London which gave but little success. Already at the age of sixteen, he was active as a writer. When Rheiner was called up for military service in 1914, he admitted to take drugs, thus trying to escape the draft. Despite this, he was sent with the start of World War I to the Russian front. After a rehabilitation failed and his earlier deception attempt came to light, he was suspended from duty in 1917 and moved to Berlin. There, constantly plagued by money worries, Rheine lived like a literary nomad staying with friends or seeking shelter in cheap flophouses. He spent much time begging in the legendary Romanischen Café where he met with well-known artists such as Claire and Ivan Goll, Else Lasker-Schüler, Ludwig Meidner and Theodor Däubler.

 Heinrich-Maria Davringhausen, The Poet Däubler, 1917

 Theodor Däubler, Giganten (1919, First Stanza)

Träume fassen langsam meine Hand
Oder nehmen etwas flugleicht von den Schläfen.
Sie geben mir den Teppichschritt zu andern Häfen.
Durch das Geträume hüpft, verknüpft sich blau ein Band.

 

Some of Rheiner's lyric works were illustrated by his friend Conrad Felixmüller. He also wrote some articles for Franz Pfemfert's radical magazin Die Aktion. His addiction to cocaine and morphine worsened, and, temporarily declared incapacitated, he was sent to a closed mental institution in Bonn. At this point, his wife left him, his artistic creativity was dwindling, and, impoverished and isolated, he spent his final years in a nomadic existence. In 1925 Rheiner committed suicide in a flophouse in Berlin's Kantstraße by taking an overdose of morphine. His friend Conrad Felixmüller later dedicated to him his famous painting "The Death of the Poet Walter Rheiner" (shown above).

Frieda Riess, Gottfried Benn, 1924

 Gottfried Benn, Kokain (1917)

Den Ich-zerfall, den süßen, tiefersehnten,
Den gibst Du mir: schon ist die Kehle rauh,
Schon ist der fremde Klang an unerwähnten
Gebilden meines Ichs am Unterbau.

Nicht mehr am Schwerte, das der Mutter Scheide
Entsprang, um da und dort ein Werk zu tun
Und stählern schlägt --: gesunken in die Heide,
Wo Hügel kaum enthüllter Formen ruhn!

Ein laues Glatt, ein kleines Etwas, eben -
Und nun entsteigt für Hauche eines Wehns
Das Ur, geballt, Nicht-seine beben
Hirnschauer mürbesten Vorübergehns.

Zersprengtes Ich - o aufgetrunkene Schwäre -
Verwehte Fieber - süß zerborstene Wehr -:
Verströme, o verströme Du - gebäre
Blutbäuchig das Entformte her.

Rheiner's only work ever reprinted is the 1918 short novel "Cocain". In this insightful study of a cocaine psychosis he described the misery of a drug addict, his life of hallucinations, and the increasingly strong urge for injections. In the end, the protagonist sees no way out of his misery and commits suicide. "Cocain" has recently been published as an eBook (in German language only); you can download it free of charge here. 

Otto Dix - Brothers-in-Law

Otto Dix, Dr. Hans Koch, 1921

Dix's paintings Salon I (below) and Salon II (lost) were acquired by Dix's good friend, sometime patron and one time sitter, Dr. Hans Koch (1881-1952). When the artist left Düsseldorf to return to Dresden in 1921, one of the items traveling with him was Koch's wife, Martha (1895–1985). Dix and Martha later married, while Dix and Koch, remained good friends. When the latter married his ex-wife's older sister, Maria, the two men indeed became brothers-in-law. How terribly, terribly civil.  

Otto Dix, The Saloon I, 1921

Otto Dix had another Doctor friend, Dr. Wilhelm Mayer-Hermann, whom he portrayed in 1926. Both, the Doctor and his portray wound up across the Atlantic Ocean in the same city. Six years after its completion Dr. Mayer-Hermann was donated to the Museum of Modern Art in 1932, where it has remained on permanent display. The good Dr. and his family emigrated from Berlin to Manhattan in 1934, and Mayer-Hermann established a wildly successful ear, nose and throat practice. It is said anecdotally that, until his death in 1945, he enjoyed visiting "himself" at MoMA and never failed to be privately amused by the unkind remarks his portrait elicited from other viewers.

Otto Dix, Dr. Mayer-Hermann, 1926

Cycle

by Gottfried Benn (1912)

The lone molar of a whore

who had died unknown

had a gold filling.

As if by silent agreement

the others had all fallen out.

But this one the morgue attendant knocked out

and pawned to go dancing.

For, he said,

only earth should return to earth.