Admission free

Installation with a letter by Else Lasker-Schüler in the exhibition Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, 2019 | © NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, photo: Connolly Weber Photography

Else Lasker-Schüler

Else Lasker-Schüler's Letter to Karl Wolfskehl, 23 October 1916 was part of the exhibition Tell me about yesterday tomorrow (2Nov. 28, 2019 until Oct. 18, 2020).

About the artist

Else Lasker-Schüler (born in Wuppertal- Elberfeld in 1869) was a lyric poet and author who also created illustrations. Her first book of prose was published in 1906, followed by plays and volumes of poems. After her second marriage ended in divorce in 1912, Lasker-Schüler received financial support from her friends, especially Karl Kraus. She engaged in literary dialog with Franz Marc and starting in 1912 had a close relationship with Gottfried Benn. Following the National Socialists’ coming to power in 1933, she was in extreme danger as a Jew, first emigrating to Switzerland and later to Palestine. In 1939, she moved to Jerusalem, where she died in 1945.

Else Lasker-Schüler, c. 1931 | © Scherl/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

Letter to Karl Wolfskehl, 23 October 1916

Ink on paper, 22.5 x 28.3 cm

Else Lasker-Schüler is considered one of the most renowned German Expressionists. Her literary work includes poems, prose, and plays. In her lifetime, her lyric poetry was published in various avant-garde magazines like Der Sturm, whose editor, Herwarth Walden, was Lasker-Schüler’s second husband; in Karl Kraus’ Fackel, and in anthologies like Mein blaues Klavier (1943). Her writings are strongly autobiographical and display great poetic force. Love poetry as well as religious topics play an important role. She frequently used biblical and broadly oriental motifs that she combined freely, coining new linguistic creations in the process.

The exhibition includes an illustrated letter that exemplifies her artistic exchange with the author Karl Wolfskehl. Furthermore, she was closely associated with the painter Franz Marc through their letters. In a correspondence between “Prince Jussuf of Thebes,” Lasker-Schüler’s alter ego, and Marc, who responded as the “Blaue Reiter,” a poetic fantasy world blossomed. On sheets illustrated with pencil and crayon, some of them collaged with gold paper, emerged images of a place of longing which Lasker-Schüler also associated with Jerusalem. In the merging and juxtaposition of imagery and writing, Lasker-Schüler created a delicately drawn picture of her inner experience.