48
B+WCOMMENT
An experimenter and innovator, Aenne Biermann is one of the most
important female photographers of the 20th century. Shoair Mavlian,
assistant curator of photography at Tate Modern, tells the story
of her tragically short photographic career.
A MODERN EYE
I
n November 2015 Tate Modern
hosted a two-day conference
titled Fast Forward: Women in
Photography, which broadly
looked at women’s involvement
in, and contribution to, the
photographic medium. There
were some fantastic papers
presented which focused on
women photographers from the
beginning of the 20th century.
This prompted me to look back
through the Tate collection and
write about Aenne Biermann,
a key female figure in early 20thcentury photography whose work
we hold in the Tate collection.
Aenne Biermann was born in
Goch, Germany, in 1898 and took
up photography in 1921 at the
age of 23. Biermann was a self-
taught photographer, mastering
her technical skills by reading
magazines and journals during
a time when the photographic
medium was coming of age. Her
interest in photography grew
from a desire to capture family
moments and developed into
a much more studied interestin the camera's relationship
to documenting the beauty
and complexity of the modern
world. She was interested in
documenting her immediate
surroundings, focusing in on the
light and shadow, and shape and
form, found in both the natural
and man-made world.
As was common practice
during this time, Biermann took
on commissions alongside her
personal practice and in 1927
the local geologist Rudolf Hundt
commissioned her to take veryprecise photographs of rocks
and minerals for his scientific
work. This was perhaps a turning
point for Biermann as not only
did it prompt her to hone her
technical skills in the studio
and in the darkroom but, more
importantly, it triggered her to
see architectural forms present
within these organic objects.
This can be seen in the way in
which she photographed plants
and flowers in the studio, often
isolating them against a black or
white background, taking themCherry plantation Opposite My childAll pictures © Aenne Biermann,
courtesy of Tate Photography48-50_A_MODERN_EYE_185 ER/MB.indd 4848-50_A_MODERN_EYE_185 ER/MB.indd 48 07/12/2015 12:1907/12/2015 12:19