Anita Rée

Anita Rée, Nude (Self-Portrait), 1923

Anita Rée came from an old Jewish merchant family. She was born in Hamburg, in 1885. Problems with state and church officials, attacks in the NSDAP press, and finally personal disappointments led this psychically and physically fragile artist to flee to the island of Sylt. Lonely and suffering the fear of persecution she was deeply concerned by the disbanding of the Hamburg Secession and the political developments in Germany. At the age of forty-eight she did not feel able to emigrate. She who had been conversant with the idea of suicide since 1916 took her own life in December 1933 by taking barbitone.

Anita Rée, White Trees, 1925