The first ever presentation and long-overdue rediscovery of Dodo’s graphic work provides a broad insight into an artistic life that was shaped by constant upheaval. Dodo, born in 1907 in Berlin as Dörte Clara Wolff, enjoyed a care-free upbringing in a wealthy Jewish milieu. Even as a young woman, she possessed an allure over those around her and a nature that was uncompromising and intensely emotional.
Dodo received her formal education at the prestigious Schule Reimann and went on to become a successful costume and fashion illustrator. She reached the peak of her artistic career in the years 1927 to 1929, when she created a string of caricaturally drawn, brightly coloured gouaches for the Berlin-based satirical weekly Ulk. These pictures depicted the mondaine life of the modern urban socialite, as well as the increasing alienation of the sexes. With sharp contours, oscillating between Art Déco and the New Objectivity, Dodo managed to capture the essence of the cosmopolitan lifestyle of the late twenties with which she was so intimately familiar.
This first retrospective, presented by the Art Library in Berlin, features around 120 of her works from all periods of her life: mondaine fashion illustration, illustrations for Ulk, her ‘pictures of the unconscious’ (created in Zurich in 1933 while undergoing psychoanalysis), illustrations for Jewish magazines and works created in exile in London.
Opening tonight, February 29, 7 pm:
Dodo (1907–1998) – A Life in Pictures
Dates: March 1 – May 28, 2012
Art Library
Matthäikirchplatz
10785 Berlin
Image: Dodo, “In der Loge” for the satirical weekly Ulk, 1929
