Michel Hazanavicius's film The Artist resurfaced here and there in different fashion collections, spawning in the last two seasons a trend for Art Deco and silent movie icons.
Yet, if you want to remain in the same period of time while discovering a slightly more obscure reference, check out the exhibition currently on at the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin.
Entitled "Dodo (1907-1998) – A Life in Pictures” (until 28th May 2012), the event celebrates the rediscovery of artist Dörte Clara Wolf, simply known as “Dodo”.
Born in Berlin in 1907, Wolff trained at the local Reimann Schule and, from the late ‘20s on, she worked as a freelance fashion illustrator.
Between 1927 and '29 she created some of her best works, caricaturally drawn gouaches inspired by Berlin’s cosmopolitan life style and socialites for the Berlin-based satirical weekly ULK.
Her works were characterised by rather complex compositions, very intense, vivid colors and sharp silhouettes.
Dodo knew Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker and also designed costumes for revues and parties.
In the '30s Dodo went through a rather turbulent period of time in her life, marked by intense works of art and, in 1933, she spent four months in Zurich, undergoing psychoanalysis, a therapy meant to help her dealing with her repressed personality conflicts.
Being Jewish, Dodo went into exile in 1936 moving to London, where she died in 1998. Throughout her life she kept on creating art, producing illustrations for children's books, greeting cards and promotional graphics.
The exhibition - comprising around 120 graphic works from all phases of her life and showing how Dodo moved from Art Deco to New Objectivity - includes glamorous costume and fashion drawings, drafts and cheerful yet acerbic watercolor vignettes and illustrations for ULK, as well as her often critical portraits of the cosmopolitan socialites in which she hinted at alienated gender relationships, plus some “pictures of the unconscious” she made while in Zurich, illustrations for Jewish magazines and works created in exile in London.
"Dodo (1907-1998) – A Life in Pictures” is at the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin, Germany, until 28th May 2012, and will move to London's Ben Uri Gallery in June.
All images in this post are taken from the website Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
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