Artworks

LOTTE JACOBI (German-American, 1886 - 1990) 

Lotte Jacobi was a German-American photographer, best known for her portraits of culturally significant figures. 

Jacobi was born in 1886 in Thorn, Germany. Following three generations of photographers, Jacobi took her first photograph at age 12 using a pinhole camera. In 1917, she enrolled at the Bavarian State Academy of Photography and later studied photography at the University of Munich. She managed her father’s studio in Berlin from 1927 to 1935 and photographed several significant German personalities such as Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill. 

During World War II, Jacobi fled Germany and opened her own studio in New York. Jacobi continued creating portraits in America, capturing subjects such as Albert Einstein, Franz Lederer, and more. She lived to the age of 104. Jacobi’s work can be found at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire, the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York, and more.