»Lotte Jacobi & Lotte Reiniger. Between Success and Exile« at the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin

From January 22 to March 20, 2022, shortly before its move to a new, barrier-free location at Charlottenburg Palace, the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin will offer an exhibition highlight that once again presents the captivating art scene of the 1920s in Germany: Lotte Jacobi and Lotte Reiniger. Between Success and Exile combines photographs by Jacobi with animated films and silhouettes by Reiniger. Some 70 exhibits, mainly on loan from the Berlinische Galerie, the Jewish Museum, and Reiniger's estate from the Stadtmuseum Tübingen, among others, transport visitors to a time that was particularly intensely marked by artistic freedom and avant-garde thinking.

Lotte Jacobi (1896-1990) photographed portraits and, above all, theater and dance performances in a dynamic manner. She explored the unconventional and also proved to be a talented businesswoman. Her photographs were circulated in newspapers and were widely known. In 1935, Jacobi and her family emigrated to the United States due to the Nazi regime. The special exhibition traces this caesura: only works from the period up to 1935 are presented.

Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981) also left Germany in the same year and lived for the most part in London. She came into contact with the animated film scene early on and produced her own avant-garde short films with silhouettes as early as the early 1920s. She was also in demand and successful in advertising. Reiniger is best known for her 1926 animated film The Adventures of Prince Achmed, on which she worked for three years. The film is now the oldest surviving animated feature-length film in the world, over 10 years older than Walt Disney's first feature film.