Beyond the Text
Poetry and the Visual Arts in Else Lasker-Schüler
The manuscripts, letters, and original editions of Else Lasker-Schüler’s prose and poetry combine text with drawing and pictograms. This is evidence both of her fascination with Ancient Egyptian art and especially with hieroglyphs, which mix linguistic signs and pictograms and different textures, and of her equal life-long commitment to writing, painting, and drawing.
Postcard to Friedrich Sally and Sina Grosshut
The postcard to Friedrich S. and Sina Grosshut reflects the social and literary network of the poet in British Mandate Palestine: the owners of the bookshop »Heatid« organised poetry readings in Jerusalem, and the Grosshuts did so in Haifa, where they ran a small antiquarian bookshop.
Read a commentary on this object by Karl Jürgen Skrodzki ...
Postcard to Friedrich Sally and Sina Grosshut
Read a commentary on this object by Karl Jürgen Skrodzki ...
»The Banished Poet«
The drawing was completed in Jerusalem in 1942 although Else Lasker-Schüler began working on it in the mid 1930s. Symbolically, it refers to the decisive year 1933.
Read a commentary on this object by Karl Jürgen Skrodzki ...
»Dance in the Kibbutz«
The drawing reflects one of many scenes that Else Lasker-Schuler encountered in Palestine, and is at the same time evidence of her poetic engagement with the bodily and metaphorical associations of modernist dance.
Read a commentary on this object by Liora Bing-Heidecker ...
»The Nights of Tino from Baghdad«
The collection of prose fragments and poems is a reflection of Else Lasker-Schüler's search for a revolutionary female poetic voice within a patriarchal society.
Read a commentary on this object by Liora Bing-Heidecker ...
»The Nights of Tino from Baghdad«
(p. 7)
Read a commentary on this object by Liora Bing-Heidecker ...
»The Nights of Tino from Baghdad«
(p. 8)
Read a commentary on this object by Liora Bing-Heidecker ...
»The Nights of Tino from Baghdad«
(p. 53)
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Letter to Paul Goldschneider
The letter to the young Paul Goldschneider is part of a wider epistolary exchange between them, and evidence of the ways Else Lasker-Schüler intertwined text and object, biography and fantasy.
»To the Apostle«
The manuscript shows a version of the poem »In my Lap«/»In my Womb« (»My Love Song«) from the volume »My Blue Piano« (1943). The letter is addressed the educational and cultural philosopher Ernst Akiba Simon (1899–1988) who emigrated from Berlin to Jerusalem in 1928 and became the inspiration for the poet's love poems after 1935.
Notebook 1937
Despite its small size, Else Lasker-Schüler’s 1937 notebook from her exile period in Zurich is a testimony of the poet's life in Swiss exile from 1933 to 1939.
Notebook 1937
Notebook 1937
Notebook 1937
Letter to Ernst Akiva Simon
This letter reflects the historical situation of March 1943. Else Lasker-Schüler responds to reports about the Shoah in Nazi Germany.
Letter to Ernst Akiva Simon
»Asser Mëmëd Schalomein Jussuf«
The drawing was completed around 1920 in the context of the poet's epistolary novel »Der Malik«, in which Else Lasker-Schüler writes herself and her surroundings into the story of Prince Jussuf.
Read a commentary on this object by Astrid Schmetterling ...
»The Malik«
The avant-garde novel »Der Malik« (1919) captures Lasker-Schüler's friendship with Franz Marc, to whom she dedicated the work. The »Imperial History with Images and Drawings« integrates the poet's environment into a story of prince Jussuf.
Read a commentary on this object by Astrid Schmetterling ...
»The Bond of the Wild Jews« from »Thebes. Poems and Lithographs«
The hand-colored and signed lithograph forms part of the volume »Thebes: Poems and Lithographs« (1923). Copy no. 88, which is shown here, bears a handwritten dedication to the actor and later theater manager Kurt Horwitz.
»The Bond of the Wild Jews« from »Thebes. Poems and Lithographs«
(dedication)
»The Bond of the Wild Jews« from »Thebes. Poems and Lithographs«
(illustration)
»The Bond of the Wild Jews« from »Thebes. Poems and Lithographs«
(poem)
»At Mr. Agnon's Beloved Talpioth«
Else Lasker-Schüler was a friend of the Agnons in the Talpioth neigbourhood of Jerusalem, to which she refers in this drawing.
»Talpioth in Jerusalem between the Mountains of Moab (Arab Students)«
Else Lasker-Schüler drew many scenes inspired by the landscapes and people she encountered in Jerusalem and its surroundings. In Talpioth she frequented the house of writer S.Y. Agnon and his family, which inspired several drawings of this Jerualem neighbourhood.
»The Land of the Hebrews«
»The Land of the Hebrews« (1937), a fantastical piece of travel literature, was inspired by Else Lasker-Schüler's visit to Palestine in 1934. Shown here is a page of the typescript with autograph amendments.
Drawings in Albert Ehrenstein's Notebook
The notebook of Albert Ehrenstein contains several drawings by Else Lasker-Schüler, created in 1916, during an encounter in Leipzig.
Read a commentary on this object by Stefan Litt ...
Drawings in Albert Ehrenstein's Notebook
Postcard to Silvain Guggenheim
The silk manufacturer and president of the Swiss Israelite Welfare Union, Silvain Guggenheim, supported Else Lasker-Schüler during her stay in Switzerland and temporarily secured her residence permit. The postcard refers to this help: »Thanks! Truly thanks!«
Postcard to Silvain Guggenheim
Portrait Photograph of Else Lasker-Schüler
This portrait photo of Else Lasker-Schüler was taken in 1906 or slightly earlier. It shows the poet of the Peter-Hille-Book, which was published by Axel Juncker during this period.
Portrait Photograph of Else Lasker-Schüler
This portrait photo of Else Lasker-Schüler was taken in 1906 or slightly earlier. It shows the poet of the Peter-Hille-Book, which was published by Axel Juncker at that time.
Card to Franz Marc
This postcard is part of the poet's artistic exchange with the painter Franz Marc between 1912 and 1916.
Drawing and note for Franz Marc
This postcard is part of the poet's artistic exchange with the painter Franz Marc between 1912 and 1916.
Postcard to Franz Marc
»Vive la guerre!« This postcard is part of the poet's artistic exchange with the painter Franz Marc, written just before the sixth sequence of »Letters and Images« which appeared in the journal »Die Aktion«.
Postcard to Franz Marc
»The Aiming Lightning Pratices Bow and Arrow«
This collage forms part of the series of many drawings and illustrations created by Else Lasker-Schüler once in exile in British Mandate Palestine and inspirted by its diverse landscapes and peoples.
»Thebes with Jussuf«
This drawing is part of the project on the Book »Thebes« in the early 1920s.
