White Shadows

By Elin Spring

If you like surprises, I bet you’ll like this. The Harvard Art Museums (HAM) in Cambridge, MA has mounted a display of stunning cameraless photographs, by turns mysterious, whimsical, and vivacious. Not your Photo 101 fare. And with them, the story of a complex 20th century German artist whose photograms reflect the trials and triumphs of her eventful life. Comparative works throughout the exhibit reveal the fascinating history of an art form often feminized and dismissed as simplistic. Think again. The intriguing story and astonishing images in “White Shadows: Anneliese Hager and the Camera-less Photograph” will be on view through July 31^st, 2022.

Anneliese Hager, German, Broken Beams, 1953. Gelatin silver print (photogram). Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2018.324. Estate of Anneliese Hager. Image courtesy of Harvard Art Museums; President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Born into an era of World Wars and artistic revolutions, Anneliese Hager (German, 1904-1997) coalesced her early scientific training in microphotography, a passion for poetry and love of French language, and her attraction to the Surrealism Movement into an inventive tenacity for cameraless image making. The fateful coincidence of wartime scarcity and artistic suppression, along with cultural bias toward painting and a hefty dose of misogyny practically erased Hager’s remarkable contributions as a surrealist artist and poet. We have the interest of Lynette Roth, Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum at HAM, along with one of Hager’s daughters, her second husband, abstract artist K.O. Götz (German, 1914-2017), and a few other art historians to thank for bringing Hager’s exceptional work to light again.

Installation view of two small, untitled photograms made by Anneliese Hager between 1947-1949 using multiple exposures, projections and layering of organic substances like grains, seeds and straw. Courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums. Photo by Elin Spring.

Anneliese Hager, German, Untitled, 1950s–60s. Gelatin silver print (photogram). Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2018.323. Estate of Anneliese Hager. Image courtesy of Harvard Art Museums; President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Hager started making photograms in the 1930’s, influenced by illustrations she saw of mesmerizing graphic work by László Moholy-Nagy and entrancing dystopic imagery by Man Ray. She continued with this work into the 1960’s, culminating with a selection of her cameraless photographs and surrealist poems in a collection entitled “White Shadows,” in reference to the reversal of light and dark in photograms. Although she is estimated to have created almost 150 works, everything Hager made until February 1945 was destroyed in the WWII bombing of Dresden. The twenty-nine rare pieces of work acquired by Harvard Art Museums and exhibited in this show were all produced from 1947 to 1965.

Installation view of “White Shadows,” edition 15/55, published in 1964 with original photogram covers by Anneliese Hager, containing her poems from the late 1950’s and offset prints of her photograms dating from 1948-1963. Courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums. Photo by Elin Spring.

Edmund Kesting, German, Portrait of Anneliese Hager and K. O. Götz, 1943. Gelatin silver print. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2019.111. Edmund Kesting Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Image courtesy of Harvard Art Museums; President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Marta Hoepffner, German, Portrait of Anneliese Hager, c. 1950. Gelatin silver print. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2019.112. Estate of Marta Hoepffner. Image courtesy of Harvard Art Museums; President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Feature Image: Anneliese Hager, German, Untitled (Portrait A. H.), 1947. Gelatin silver print (photogram). Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2018.313. Estate of Anneliese Hager. Image courtesy of Harvard Art Museums; President and Fellows of Harvard College.

I find it fortuitous that we can view Hager’s more mature and sophisticated work. It’s possible to appreciate the influences of photographer friends like Edmund Kesting, known for his multiple exposure techniques, and Marta Hoepffner, whose portraits of Hager can be seen in examples of later work where she combined photographs with photograms. Hager’s early opinion “that photograms of feathers, grasses and crystals were graphically more appealing (in contrast and precision) than the analogous photographs” only intensified and evolved over time.

Installation view of large, untitled photogram made by Anneliese Hager c. 1954 using textiles. Courtesy of Harvard Art Museums. Photo by Elin Spring, with apologies for reflections.

Anneliese Hager, German, Lost Visage, 1963. Gelatin silver print (photogram). Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of the German Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, 2018.339. Estate of Anneliese Hager. Image courtesy of Harvard Art Museums; President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The Surrealism Movement encouraged artists to abandon rules and unleash their unconscious minds. Hager felt emboldened to pursue an intuitive approach and embrace the serendipity of her imaginative techniques. Her early enchantment with nature’s forms later extended into different phases of matter including liquids and gases, such as glue and bubbles. Her use of common household items expanded into the creation of cutouts, from representations of profiles and hands to fanciful abstract forms reminiscent of Matisse. Her manipulation of textiles flourished. She experimented with accompanying or combining her imagery with text, a relatively rare practice at the time. The results were spectacular, defying the popular notion – often promulgated in women’s magazines – that photograms were merely a crafty pastime for women folk and amateurs.

Installation view of photogram by Anneliese Hager c. 1963 with integrated text and imagery. Courtesy of Harvard Art Museums. Photo by Elin Spring.

Hager enjoyed some prestigious accomplishments. She contributed to the art journal “Meta” and was selected for the now legendary CoBrA exhibition in Amsterdam in 1949, one of just three women and the only photographer. But un-celebrated achievements similarly distinguished Hager’s career. I would be remiss not to mention, right in the middle of Women’s History Month, that Hager sustained her creative productivity during the rise of Naziism (known for its repression of free artistic expression), the fighting of World War II, through two marriages and divorces, raising five children, and working various menial jobs to support her work and family. She often created at night, crouching in the dark as her children slept nearby. Hager’s impressive energy and devotion is mirrored in her inspiring images – as exhilarating in their re-discovery as when they first emerged on a shifting political and artistic landscape.

Installation view of two small, untitled photograms by Anneliese Hager c. 1947-1949 using cutout self-portraiture. Courtesy of the Harvard Art Museums. Photo by Elin Spring.

My sincere thanks to curator Lynette Roth for her enlightening tour of this exhibition.

For more information about the exhibit and accompanying programming, go to: https://harvardartmuseums.org/exhibitions/6120/white-shadows-anneliese-hager-and-the-camera-less-photograph