Why this Unknown Artwork Is One of the Greatest of the 20th Century
A female artist from Germany who broke the rules
This painting is, in my view, one of the greatest paintings of the 20th century. It is not a well-known image, yet it deserves to be considered among the very best works of recent art.
I must admit to having a particular fondness for the artist who painted it. Her name was Lotte Laserstein; in the painting she is pictured sitting at the easel. For a number of years now I’ve been quietly celebrating her art and the contribution she made to modern painting.
Early Success and Nazi Pressures
At first glance, it is a standard life study of a nude. Yet the positioning of the artist within the picture does something remarkable: it transforms the painting into a sophisticated commentary on the artist’s own life and, more broadly, on women in modern society at the time of its making.
In my Studio was painted by Laserstein in 1928. The foreground depicts a nude model reclining on a white sheet. In the middle-ground, the artist herself appears at her easel. In the background, there are snow-covered rooftops of the district of Wilmersdorf in Berlin where Laserstein had her studio.
