Trude Fleischmann

Trude Fleischmann (1895–1990) photographed theater stars, dancers, and intellectuals. She became famous for portraits of her contemporaries, such as Karl Kraus and Alban Berg, while her studies of dancers and nudes aroused furor. Her motion studies, featuring nude dancers, represent an intense search for new images of the body. Fleischmann was one of a group of young, self-confident, Jewish, female photographers opening their own studios in Vienna after World War I. These women forged their own careers in what was then considered an exclusively male profession. Fleischmann’s studio became a meeting place for members of Vienna’s cultural sphere. After fleeing persecution in 1938, she managed to get her foot in the door in New York, where she built up a second career. This book focuses on the photographer’s Viennese period (1920–1938) and contains many unpublished portraits, studies of dancers and nudes, travel photos, and photojournalism.   Exhibition schedule: Wien Museum, Vienna, January 27–May 29, 2011