Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

Elsa von Freytag- Loringhoven, born Elsa Hildegard Ploetz, ( born July 12, 1874 in Swinoujscie, † December 15, 1927 in Paris) was a German artist of the Dada movement.

Life and work

She was muse and nude model, painter and sculptor, poet and reciter. She was the Dada icon of America. From 1913 to 1923 she lived in New York, where she experienced a short -lasting popularity.

Often living in abject poverty because their art and the person was considered too eccentric, and the art scene was dominated by men, she and financed by the collector and patron Peggy Guggenheim. She was part of the U.S. art scene of the Paris Left Bank ( Rive Gauche ) in the 1920s, where she was known among other things, Djuna Barnes.

Elsa von Freytag- Loringhoven was married three times: first marriage (1901 ) with the Art Nouveau architect August Endell, in a second marriage (1910 ) with the translator Felix Paul Greve, with whom she moved to the U.S., and in his third marriage (1913 ) with Leopold Karl Friedrich Baron von Freytag- Loringhoven ( 1885-1919 ).

Exhibitions

• The Dada Baroness. Elsa von Freytag- Loringhoven. Exhibition, designed by Ernest Wichner and Lutz Dittrich, initiated by Irene Gammel and Brigitte Ebersbach. House of Literature Berlin, 23 March to 8 May 2005. A catalog will be published by Edition Ebersbach.

Group Exhibition

• 2010: Wrong; Kunst im Tunnel, Dusseldorf curated by Katharina Fritsch and Gertrud Peters.