Anita Rée

During my recent visit to Hamburger Kunsthalle I noticed a strange, decidedly unflattering and haunting self-portrait of an artist I never heard before. 

It is a stunning, quite beautiful, clear-eyed and perhaps a bit detached look at herself - I just couldn't take my eyes of this portrait and had returned to it several times because I thought she was so fascinating and interesting in simplicity, there was a lot of going on there and quite a lot of psycho-analysis as well.

I mean, after all those Virgin mothers and baby Jesus to finally encounter something so beautiful, simple and clear like this self-portrait, I was quite stunned. I felt like I know and understand this person. You know, we could talk about difference between how others see us and how we perceive ourselves. This lady obviously saw herself not like a typical, dolled out mannequin of silky hats, painted nails, curly hair and make up but as a spiritual person above all this trappings. I am in love with this painting. But who is the artist and how come I never heard of her before?

Anita Rée was a Hamburg-born painter, very known and appreciated locally but sadly forgotten posthumously - she was Jewish, female painter in a time when these things meant tragedy and as Nazis took power, she was intimidated enough to take her own life. She would probably have been completely erased from the memory had it not been for admirers who preserved her paintings in private collections, this is how we know about her today. Perhaps just a footnote for somebody else, but my God how much I love this painting - colours, face, eyes, composition, I am absolutely in love with her. First, its very rare to see someone being so clear-eyed about herself - there is absolutely no vanity here, almost pure, cold detachment until you look at the painting a little longer and sense the beauty in details (lights on the shoulders, those hands, earrings, those eyes). Second, it might be a bit depressed (ok, melancholic) self-portrait but I don't have doubts that this is how sensitive person always see himself when facing the mirror, after all, we are who we are without audience. When looking in the mirror, we don't act, we are alone with ourselves, we see who we really are. Since I know almost nothing about Anita Rée, I can freely write down my impressions and say what I feel about this strangely haunting painting. She was lonely, unhappy and definitely self-aware, deeply spiritual person, perhaps disgusted with a world around her. She had also rejected universally accepted feminine trappings and depicted herself as almost classical Greek sculpture (or anything from Pompeian art), pure, naked, almost immortal, not belonging to any particular race, time or place. I am not sure that Rée herself was familiar with ancient portraits of Pompeii but this is exactly what they looked like. Stunning. I salute you, Anita Rée, wherever you are.