Putting make-up on, ca. 1930–1932
Series titleSongs of Bilitis
Bicoloured lithograph
Sheet dimensions56,8 × 40 cm
About the work“The delicate, hazy watercolours you publish in magazines and journals so surpass the undisciplined scribblings of most of your fellow guild members that one owes you a small declaration of love,” wrote the journalist Kurt Tucholsky to the painter and graphic artist Jeanne Mammen in 1929. Around the same time, her gallerist Fritz Gurlitt commissioned her to illustrate Pierre Louÿs’ collection of poems “The Songs of Bilitis” from 1894. Mammen moved the narrative – which is about lesbian love in the ancient world – to contemporary Berlin.
AccessionAcquisition 2021
Inventory numberK 2021-19
