Anita Berber. Acht Originallithographieen

Berlin: Fritz Gurlitt Verlag, 1919. First edition. Elephant folio. Title sheet, with eight lithographs, each mounted and matted and signed by the artist, housed in a portfolio of decorated paper over boards, quarter vellum gilt. Signed by Gurlitt on the colophon. Of a total of 80 sets, this is number XIII of only 40 sets with hand-painted watercolor highlights on four of the lithographs. Some of the mats show some foxing or light stains. The outer portfolio has some splits along some folds, with wear and some staining, the title sheet is edgeworn and foxed. The images themselves are overall bright and clean.

Anita Berber was an emblematic figure of the decadent period of the Weimar Republic. She combined aspects of the erotic and the expressionistic in her performances, cutting a wide and scandalous path through Berlin and other European cities. "Berber's early exploits on stage and off drew the attention of the artist Charlotte Berend-Corinth (1880-1967), a student and later wife of the painter Lovis Corinth. The couple circulated in prominent Berlin artistic circles and high society. Though Berend-Corinth prioritized her family and domestic life over her art, she portrayed a number of celebrated dance, music and theater stars, including Berber, Valeska Gert, Fritzi Massary, and Max Pallenberg, in several print portfolios. Extant correspondence illuminates her friendships with Massary and Pallenberg, and it is possible that she and Berber knew each other socially before the sitting.... Published by Gurlitt-Presse in 1919, Berend-Corinth's set of eight lithographs shows Berber nude or partially nude, posing either seated in a chair or standing frontally. In each print Berber assumes a different character, with fanciful accessories and dramatic poses.... Seated in her dressing room, Berber seductively eats while a bottle of champagne and a vase of oversized lilies stand on the vanity table. Legs spread, arm raised, her body leaning to expose her to the viewer, her position and over-the-top costume also imply that Berber is performing the role of vamp. In other words, her eroticism is staged. Berend-Corinth's depictions of Berber are surprising in part because of the disparity between the reputations of subject and artist- one known for eroticism, the other for straight-laced domesticity. Berend-Corinth was apparently accustomed to nudity, as she modeled for several of her husband's nude studies, and in photographs of her studio she is shown working from a seminude female model. A 1980 review of her art compares the Berber lithographs with Toulouse-Lautrec's work, implying that such erotic depictions were commonplace in Modernism. Certainly, the lithographs demonstrate that by 1919 Berber had attained fame enough to draw the attention of an artist from the highest echelons of the Berlin art world" (Funkenstein).

The Weimar and theatre scholar Mel Gordon writes, "The Gurlitt Gallery Press privately printed 80 luxurious sets of the 'Anita Berber Portfolio' in the summer of 1919. Berend hand-printed and signed 40 of the oversize lithographic parcels and assumed that because of their fantastic cost and tiny print run, the series would probably elude Berlin's hard-pressed censoring boards. She was wrong. The entire Portfolio was labeled pornographic and quickly suppressed. Ten years later, the drawings reappeared in Viennese erotic encyclopedias and moral histories of the period. They would be among the most enduring images of Anita Berber between the time of her death and the beginning of Nazi rule." OCLC locates two copies, National Library of Israel and Victoria and Albert Museum

References: Lothar Fischer. Tanz Zwischen Rausch und Tod: Anita Berber in Berlin 1918-1928, 1996. Susan Laikin Funkenstein. "Anita Berber: Imaging a Weimar Performance Artist." Woman's Art Journal, vol. 26, no. 1, 2005, pp. 26-31. Mel Gordon. The Seven Addictions and Five Professions of Anita Berber, Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Depravity, 2006. (Inventory #: 2455)