Portrait of a Lesbian Couple

Abstract

Mammen is one of the most versatile and unusual artists of her time. She was born Gertrud Johanna Mammen on November 21, 1890 in Berlin, Germany. When she was five-years-old the family moved to Paris. She and her older sister, Marie Louise, had their formal art education in France, Brussels, and Italy. Upon their return to Paris, in 1912, they moved into a studio and organized their first exhibition. At the outbreak of World War I, the German family had fled France, first going to Holland and then onto Berlin, where they struggled to survive. In 1919, Mammen and her sister moved into an apartment studio in the middle of the city, where they pursued their artwork. Especially during the 1920s and 1930s, Mammen created vivid depictions of life in the booming metropolis Berlin. She portrayed people of all walks of life, but her focus was on the New Woman in the Weimar Republic and her role in society. At the time, Berlin was the center for lesbian and gay subculture in Germany. Mammen painted a realistic picture of her female subjects, also unabashedly depicting lesbians involved in intimate relationships–some portraits less obvious and more covert than others (Lampela, 2005; Sykora, 1989). She Represents is one of the many watercolors of that style period (realistic style period 1922-1934). It can be read as a restrained and possibly coded portrait of a lesbian couple. We are first confronted with what appears to be a heterosexual couple but soon realize both figures