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blaues Farbfeld mit der Überschrift „Konstante: Partnerinnen"

Chapter Two: A constant – Partners

Bild zeigt eine Malerei Maschka von hinten, Kopf nach vorne geneigt, vor dunkelgrünen Hintergrund mit abstrakten Mustern und Maske.

“I can only paint what I love” (Otto Mueller)

Maria Mayerhofer (1880–1952), alias Maschka, was Mueller’s great love. Although she broke up with him and he had three other women in his life, she remained in contact with him until his death.

Searched and found

Das Bild zeigt eine Skizze, gemalt von Otto Dix, Maschka von den Schultern aufwärts, sie hat einen Bubikopfhaarschnitt und blickt zur Seite.

Maschka Mueller

Maschka and Otto met in the winter of 1899. Also an artist, she became his lover and later on his wife. She was his favourite model and his manager for art sales and contacts.

This portrait by Otto Dix (1891–1969) emphasises Maschka’s lips and stylish bob. This typical hairstyle of the 1920s was commonly associated with an eccentric lifestyle called garçonne, referring to emancipated, modern young women. Today, we would call this ideal of beauty “androgynous”.

Lovers sitting or standing are a recurring motif in Otto Mueller’s oeuvre. The pictures presented here figure him and Maschka. How are they sitting?

Male Gaze, the [meɪl geɪz]

Between Berlin and Wroclaw

In 1919, Otto Mueller was appointed to the Breslau Academy of Fine Arts. (The city is now in Poland and called Wrocław). Teaching nude drawing, he was the first professor to admit female students to his class, thus ending the exclusion of women from this form of art and opening up new career opportunities to them.

After Maschka had left him and decided to live in Berlin, his partners in Breslau were Irene Altmann and Elsbeth Lübke, but it is difficult to identify the models he portrayed during this period.

Irene Altmann auf dem Boot

Irene Altmann

Elisabeth ,Elsbeth' Lübke und Otto Mueller

Elsbeth Lübke

Elfriede ‚Fibs‘ Timm (1904-1979)

Elfriede ,Fibs' Timm