Ruth Jacobi. Photographs

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© Jewish Museum Berlin

When the name Jacobi is mentioned in the same sentence as photography, the reference is generally to Lotte Jacobi. The works of her younger sister Ruth, in contrast, are hardly known at all and will be shown in the first extensive exhibition of her work at the Jewish Museum Berlin.
Born in Posen in 1899 into a family in the business of photography for three generations, Ruth Jacobi received her photographic training at the Berlin Lette Verein's Photographic Academy. Following five years employment at the Berlin family studio, she went to the USA in 1928 where she compiled reportage on Jews from the Lower East Side among other projects. From 1931 she ran the Jacobi Studio with her sister Lotte in the Joachimsthalerstraße and from 1933 in Kurfürstendamm. Ruth Jacobi emigrated to the USA in 1935 and had withdrawn from professional photography for the most part by the end of the 1930s.

Ruth Jacobi's works comprise portraits, still lifes, reportage and travel photographs as well as botanical and experimental photography. The exhibition of around 70 shots shows the work of the virtually unknown photographer in all its diversity.

This exhibition is shown as part of the European Month of Photography Berlin. For further information see www.mdf-berlin.de or call call +49 (0)30 24 74 98 88