Three Women Photographers Revisited

“On The Other Side” (“De l’autre cote”) is an exhibition at the Maison de l”Amérique Latine revisiting three women photographers —Jeanne Mandello, Hildegard Rosenthal and Grete Stern—who fled the political turmoil of 1930’s Europe immigrating to South America. The three women, although not widely known, played an important role in bringing modern photography to Latin America (to December 20, 2018).

Hildegard Rosenthal, who studied in Germany with Paul Wolff, is considered one of Brazil’s pioneers of modern photojournalism. Jeanne Mandello brought Bauhaus design ideas and pre-war Parisian surrealist fantasy to Uruguay. Grete Stern, part of the European avant-garde of the late 1920’s, is considered among the founders of Argentina’s modern photography.

The exhibition includes a wide range of styles from Rosenthal’s “new vision” influenced reportage photos of Sao Paulo to Mandello’s sophisticated solarizations and photograms to Stern’s provocative surrealist montages. The exhibition includes Stern’s photo collages made for the women’s magazine “Idilio.” In 1948 Stern was asked to provide photos for a column based on readers’ dreams entitled “Psychoanalysis Will Help You.” The result was a series of about one hundred and fifty amazing surrealistic photomontages (1948-1951) echoing the European pre-war avant-garde.

“De l’autre cote” to December 20, 2018 at Maison de l”Amérique Latine, 217, bd. Saint Germain, Paris