Fembio Special: Famous Women from Heidelberg
Hanna Nagel
(Johanna Nagel [birth name])
born on June 10, 1907 in Heidelberg, The German Empire
died on March 15, 1975 in Heidelberg, West Germany
German graphic artist and painter
50th anniversary of her death on March 15, 2025
Biography
“I draw because it is my life.” At the age of three, she demanded a pencil and paper to draw. She was left-handed. Her mother, a teacher, and her father, a merchant, recognized her talent and encouraged her. The early death of her father weighed heavily on her, and she would later draw death again and again.
At the age of 18, she began her studies at the Landeskunstschule (state art academy) in Karlsruhe. Three years later, she went to Berlin to study under Emil Orlik. She excelled at both art schools, working in the spirit of the New Objectivity movement already while still a student.
In 1931, she married a colleague, Hans Fischer, and the couple lived in Rome for almost two years after she won the Rome Prize in 1933. In 1938, she had the child she had longed for. During the war, her Dark Sheets were banned (“degenerate art”) and she kept them stored out of sight in boxes and suitcases. She worked in a factory and as a contributor to biology textbooks, drawing the body parts of cadavers in the morgue to illustrate human anatomy.
After the war, she lived in Heidelberg. Her husband left her, and she had to earn enough to support both her mother and her daughter. The money worries were endless, and she worked hard. She drew, wrote poems and stories, made reports, illustrated books, gave lessons – all the while she detesting this commissioned work.
Before the war she had received many prizes, during the war she had been practically forgotten, and afterwards, despite exhibitions (“I can't paint abstractly”), she was unable to regain a foothold in the art scene. She suffered from serious illnesses, loneliness and a sense of being misunderstood, and died of cancer at the age of 67. In life, as in her work, she was brutally honest.
(Text from 1989; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2025.
Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
Quotes
As different as a woman is from a man, so too are the expressions of the soul. Accordingly, women's art is something completely different from men's art. You should be able to tell from my drawings that they are the work of a woman. There are only very few women who achieve a real artistic message – a message that is so personal that you can recognize the woman in the creation. (Hanna Nagel)
If you hold the rights to one or more of the images on this page and object to its/their appearance here, please contact Fembio.
