L.E. Margarete Gerhardt (1873-1955) German, Color Woodcut Print. Handsigned and titled at bottom. Depicts a flock of seagulls gliding above breaking waves. 

Overall: 11 1/4 X 16 1/4 in. 

Sight: 5 3/4 X 10 1/4 in. 

#2792 . 

Lina Elisabeth Margarete Gerhardt was born on January 8th, 1873 in Frankfurt, Germany. She was the daughter of the Prussian lawyer Carl August Friedrich Gerhardt (1832-1914), who was also briefly the mayor of Frankfurt. Three years after her birth the family moved to Berlin. After attending the Sophie-Charlotte-Gymnasium, Gerhardt studied at the painting and drawing school of the Association of Berlin Women Artists. In 1895, she became a student of Wilhelm Müller-Schoenefeld (1867-1944) for two years, who taught her portrait painting and figurative drawing, which she applied to portraits of her family members and local dignitaries. She was a regular visitor at museums, making copies of Rembrandt, Velasquez, Titian and Pesne. From 1897 to 1904 she attended the painting school of Dora Hitz (1856-1924) and was heavily influenced by her impressionistic, luminous style of painting. Inspired by an exhibition by Emil Orlik in the National Gallery, Gerhardt taught herself the technique of colored woodcuts. She undertook multiple study trips to Italy, France, England, Switzerland, Holland and North Africa, producing numerous oil paintings, glazes, watercolors, linocuts and woodcuts. From 1911 until her death Gerhardt was a member of the Association of Berlin Women Artists, serving on their board from 1933 to 1936. From 1928 on she lived and worked in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, taking over control of the family mansion when her mother died, and during World War II she continued to paint and exhibit in her home country. She was also a member of the German Art Cooperative of Schöneberg-Friedenau, and in 1941 she applied to the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts for membership, which gave her access to painting equipment denied to most others due to limited resources. She never married, but devoted much of her later life to exhausting keeping records of her extensive family. In 1943 most of her works were destroyed in a fire caused by bombing, and her oil paintings are extremely rare today. She died a virtual recluse on December 12th, 1955, mostly unknown outside of Germany. As recently as 2013 a plethora of woodcuts considered lost were identified in a private collection donated to the Verborgene Museum, and poor record-keeping during the reconstruction and separation of Berlin after the War has resulted in her information being conflated with the biography of the painter and woodcutter Margarethe Gerhardt-Hoffmann (1878-1956), who also lived in Berlin.