Photograph Signed
“A photograph never grows old. You and I change, people change all through the months and years but a photograph always remains the same.” —Albert Einstein
A wonderful signed portrait of Albert Einstein and his close companion Alice Loewy by Trude Fleischmann. Signed on the mount by Fleischmann and inscribed on the mount by Einstein “Fur Hannerl A. Einstein. 51” (For Hannah A. Einstein. 51).
Alice Loewy was an intimate friend of Einstein during his years at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. This photograph of modern science’s greatest mind, famous for his theory of general relativity, is of interest both for its historical significance and its personal ties to Einstein’s life. The photograph of Einstein and Alice Loewy was taken in the scientist’s garden in Princeton, New Jersey.
Loewy ultimately married Erich Kahler, a member of Einstein’s inner circle and a noted Jewish Czech philosopher-historian. Alice, Erich, and their daughter Hannah were part of a tight-knit German/Austrian exile group at Princeton and in New York City including Thomas Mann, the photographer Trude Fleischmann, and other religious and political exiles from Europe. The photograph is inscribed to Alice and Erich’s daughter, Hannah.
Fleischmann was a noted Austrian-born photographer; she gained international fame in 1925 when the Berlin police confiscated her nude photographs of a celebrated dancer from the theatre where they were being displayed. Fleischmann fled Austria after the Anschluss, going first to Paris, and later London, before settling in New York. She opened a studio next to Carnegie Hall and went on to photograph numerous notable personalities, with her work also appearing in magazines such as Vogue.
Princeton, NJ, c. 1951. Silver gelatin print (7 x 9 in.), mounted (11 x 13 ½ in.) and in a contemporary frame from Princeton, NJ. Fine condition.
Inscribed photographs from Einstein to his intimate friends are scarce. This fine portrait of Einstein with a close friend, made by a master Jewish émigré photographer, is a fine association
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