Grete Stern | A Sisterhood in the Otherworlds of Our Dreams and Nightmares
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Grete Stern was born in Elberfeld, near Wuppertal, Germany, in 1904. A Jewish woman impacted by events in Europe, Stern moved from Germany to London with advancing oppression of Jews in Germany, and then to Argentina with her husband Horacio Coppola.
Stern and her husband produced what the magazine ‘Sur’ called “the first serious exhibition of photographic art in Buenos Aires.”
Her work showed an unconventional approach to photography: advertisement collages and studies with crystals, objects and still-lifes. Even the most accepted subjects at the time, such as portraits and landscapes, were done in unconventional ways: perfect definition, wide chromatic spectrum, flat lighting, simple poses and untouched negatives. via JWA Encyclopedia
A woman working in a man’s world, Grete Stern enjoyed commercial success in Argentina, even after separating from her husband.
In 1948 Stern took on the most unusual assignment of providing photos for a dream interpretation column in the women’s magazine ‘Idilio’. Mostly working class women shared their dreams with Richard Rest, who was actually the renowned sociologist Gino Germani, who later became a member of the Harvard University faculty.
The result of Grete Stern’s assignment is a series of about 150 photomontages produced between 1948 and 1951 that deal with women’s oppression and submission in Argentine society. We share some of Stern’s memorable visual interpretations not only of women’s dreams, but the dichotomies of women’s lives.
