"The Summer Snow," Edward Burne-Jones, 1864.

Burne-Jones (1833-98) was one of the great artists of the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic schools. While enormously popular in his day (leading to him being granted a baronetcy), he was largely neglected and forgotten after his death, until he was rediscovered in the mid-20th century and now is popular again.

Jane Burden (1839-1914), pictured here, came from poverty but was spotted by Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who were both struck by her beauty. She modeled for both, appearing in a number of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. She eventually married William Morris, the great designer, and became a noted embroiderer and designer herself....although all her designs were credited to him. Typical.

Her private life was something of a soap opera as well. Apparently her marriage to Morris was mostly a business arrangement; she managed his successful design business, had dalliances with Rossetti and poet Wilfrid Blunt, and in the end the lady born in poverty was able to purchase a manor house to secure her daughters' futures.

Happy Portrait Monday!

From the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

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"Strasse (Avenue des Champe-Elysees)," Aenne Biermann, c. 1928.

Biermann (1898-1933) was a self-taught photographer whose career was cut short by liver disease, and whose legacy fell victim to the Holocaust.

Born to a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family, and marrying a wealthy textile merchant, she experimented with photography by taking photos of her own children. As she progressed, she began to increasingly become more avant-garde, experimenting with form and perspective, and eventually becoming a major figure in the New Objectivity movement, a Weimar-era art style that emphasized practical engagement with the world.

Here she takes a photo of a frequent sitter, actress Annaliese Schlesser, and double-exposes it with an inverted image of Paris' Champs-Elysee. Thus we have her face superimposed with radiating lines from the center bottom, and giving up an arresting image.

Her early death was bad enough, but her family fled Germany ahead of the Nazi party, and much of her body of work was destroyed during the Holocaust. Now work by Biermann is rare & extremely expensive, but what remains is studied and praised today. A prestigious photography award in Germany is named for her, keeping her legacy alive.

From a private collection.

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