Gerda Gottlieb Biography Update, Age, Career, Personal Life, Death, Works

Gerda Marie Fredrikke Wegener (born Gottlieb; 15 March 1885 – 28 July 1940) was a Danish illustrator and painter. She became known for her fashion illustrations and later for paintings that challenged the norms of her era around gender and love. Some of her works were labeled as lesbian erotica, and many were inspired by her partner, the transgender painter Lili Elbe. Wegener created these pieces in the Art Nouveau style and later in Art Deco.

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Age

Gerda Marie Frederikke Gottlieb was born on 15 March 1885 in Hammelev, Denmark.

Here is a simple table of her personal details:

Biography

Gottlieb was born in Hammelev, Denmark, to Justine (born Østerberg) and Emil Gottlieb, who was a Lutheran vicar. She grew up in a conservative environment. Although she had three siblings, she was the only one to reach adulthood. Her family later moved to Hobro, and she eventually moved to Copenhagen to study at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Wegener often painted confident, elegant women involved in different activities, using styles inspired by the Renaissance, Art Nouveau, or Art Deco. Her images usually showed women posing or taking part in the arts, like theatre, literature, and dance.

Career

Gottlieb first exhibited her work at the Charlottenborg Art Gallery in 1904, but it did not attract much notice. Her career started to take off after she graduated from the Academy in 1907 and 1908, when her art appeared in the Politiken newspaper. She became the focus of a controversy known as the Peasant Painter Dispute after her 1906 painting, Portrait of Ellen von Kohl, was rejected from exhibitions at Den frie Udstilling and Charlottenborg because of its style.

Some critics accused the painting of copying the Italian Renaissance, while others disagreed about whether it showed a weak person or an elegant, beautiful woman. Gottlieb did not take part in the debate.

Personal life

She met fellow artist Lili Elbe, who was then known as Einar Wegener, at art school. They married in 1904, when Gerda was 19 and Lili was 22. The couple traveled through Italy and France before settling in Paris in 1912. They embraced the Bohemian lifestyle, making friends with artists, dancers, and others in the creative community, and often attended carnivals and public festivals.

During this period, Elbe started wearing women’s clothing and took on her female name and identity. She became Gerda Wegener’s favorite model for paintings of beautiful women with striking almond-shaped eyes and stylish clothes. In 1913, the art world was surprised to discover that the model behind these images of petite femmes fatales was actually her “husband.”

As Elbe embraced her female identity, Gerda Wegener often introduced her as Einar Wegener’s cousin when she wore women’s clothing. In 1930, Elbe had one of the first sex reassignment surgeries. Because Danish law did not allow marriage between two women, their marriage was annulled in October 1930 by King Christian X. Elbe died in 1931 due to complications from the surgery.

Death

In 1931, Wegener married Major Fernando Porta, an Italian officer, aviator, and diplomat, and moved with him to Morocco. She divorced him in 1936 and returned to Denmark in 1938 for reasons that are not known. Wegener held her last exhibition in 1939, but by then, her art was no longer in fashion as simpler Functionalism had become popular in the 1930s. She had no children, lived alone in relative obscurity, and began drinking heavily. Gerda struggled financially and earned money by selling hand-painted postcards.

She died on 28 July 1940 in Frederiksberg, Denmark, not long after Nazi Germany invaded the country. Her small estate was auctioned, and only a brief obituary appeared in the local newspaper.

Select works illustrated by Wegener

• Den skønne Ubekendte by Andreas Winding (1912)
• L’Anneau ou La Jeune fille imprudente by Louis de Robert (1913)
• Amour Etrusque by J.-H. Rosny aîné (1914)
• Les Aventures amoureuses d’Eustache Leroussin by Daniel Barrias (1914)
• Le Peplos vert by Maurice de Waleffe (1915)
• Les Colombes poignardées by Maurice Magre (1917)
• La Guerre est morte by Louis Delluc (1917)
• Le Journal de Marinette by une Femme curieuse (1917)
• La Petite faunesse by Charles Derennes (1918)
• La Tendre Camarade by Maurice Magre (1918)
• L’Abdication de Ris-Orangis by Léo Larguier (1918)
• Contes de mon Père le Jars by Eric Allatini (1919)
• Le Parfait Suiveur by Maurice Magre (1919)
• Le Livre des vikings by Charles Guyot (1924)
• Douze sonnets lascifs by Louis Perceau (1925) – accompanied by the suite of aquarelles Les Délassements d’Éros
• Une Aventure d’amour à Venise by Giacomo Casanova (1927)
• Sur Talons rouges by Eric Allatini (1929)
• l’Œuvre du Divin Arétin (1930–1931) – suite of twelve color engravings
• Fortunio by Théophile Gautier (1934)