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Biographical/Historical Information

The painter Else Meidner, née Meyer, was born to a German-Jewish family in Berlin in 1901. From 1918 to 1925, she studied in Berlin at the School for Arts and Crafts; at the Art Academy; and at the Studienatelier für Malerei und Plastik Lewin-Funke, where she met her future husband Ludwig Meidner; they married in 1927, and Rabbi Leo Baeck officiated the ceremony. Ludwig and Else Meidner arrived as refugees in London in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of war. Given her plight working as a servant in war-torn London, separated from both her husband and their son David, it is all the more remarkable that she participated in a joint exhibition with her husband at the Ben Uri Gallery in 1949. Else Meidner died in London in 1987. - Remedy to the neglect of this forceful woman artist was provided by Ines Schlenker (Kings College) in her paper, “Else Meidner: Gender, Ethnicity and Condition of Exile”.

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Citation

Meidner, Else: A Jew : portrait, Leo Baeck Institute, 78.1877.