Agnes Baltsa

This biography is not yet available in English.

You can find the German version here.

Angelika Hoerle

born November 20, 1899 in Cologne/Germany
died September 9, 1923 in Cologne/Germany

German fashion designer, painter and graphic artist
100^th anniversary of her death on September 9, 2023

Angelika Hoerle was one of the many women artists of the Weimar Republic whose work was long ignored by art historians. But this progressive artist, who died at a young age, is now viewed as the shooting star of the Dada scene with even a novel and a piece of music based on her eventful life.   "PAINTING IS THE BALANCE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL": EARLY DISPUTES In contrast to the majority of her better-known colleagues, Angelika Hoerle grew up in a household of modest financial means. Father Richard Fick, a gaunt cabinetmaker who sympathized with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), supported the family while mother Anna Maria Fick (née Kraft) was responsible for managing the home and caring for the four children. The traditional couple eyed the development of their youngest and in their view most stubborn child with suspicion, especially after the beautiful, tall Angelika decided to become an artist. She allegedly announced this intent at the age of twelve. Young Angelika…read more

George Eliot

born on November 22, 1819 in Arbury, Warwickshire
died on December 22, 1880 in London

English novelist
200th birthday on 22 November 2019

The great realist George Eliot, one of the most important writers of the 19th century, published Scenes of Clerical Life, which is the ‘“prelude” to the seven novels for which she is famous, relatively late in life at the age of 38. Thereafter, however, she wasted no time and in three years (1859-61) published three novels that are considered world class literature: Adam Bede, The Mill on the Floss, and Silas Marner. Her audience loved her mix of humour, wisdom and empathy; these novels sold very well, as did her later novels Felix Holt, Romola, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. George Eliot and her life-partner, the man of letters and scholar George Henry Lewes, needed this success because besides providing for themselves they had to support his wife Agnes, the three sons he had with Agnes, and the four “illegitimate” children Agnes had with Leigh Hunt. Eliot’s incredible literary output was also made possible because she was ostracized from society for her relationship with…read more

Margaret Atwood

This biography is not yet available in English.

You can find the German version here.

Renée Vivien

born on June 11, 1877 in London, Great Britain
died on November 18, 1909 in Paris, France

French-British poet
115th anniversary of her death on November 18, 2024

Pauline Mary Tarn, born in 1877 to an American mother and an British father in a wealthy, middle-class family in London, hated her country of origin ("English Sundays are prayers and roast beef, two ... equally indigestible things“) and her relatives (”I wish you could divorce your parents!"). She was only happy in the years she spent in elegant Parisian boarding schools for girls, surrounded by the French language and French poetry. She came of age at 21 and - equipped with a considerable inheritance - chose to settle in Paris. Her childhood friend, Violette Shillito, soon introduced her to another heiress who was equally enthusiastic about France and literature: the American Natalie Barney. The two young women entered into a brief, intense love affair that had a deeply unsettling effect on the introverted, romantic Pauline and gave her poetic talent both a theme and a direction. Merely a year later, in 1901, Pauline Tarn published her first volume of poetry under the…read more

Marjane Satrapi

This biography is not yet available in English.

You can find the German version here.

Marianne Breslauer Feilchenfeldt

This biography is not yet available in English.

You can find the German version here.

Mechthild von Hackeborn

This biography is not yet available in English.

You can find the German version here.