Oct 31 at 10:30 AM - Sale 2684 -

Sale 2684 - Lot 83

Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
LOTTE JACOBI (1896-1990)
Albert Einstein, Princeton, NJ. 1938; printed 1970s.
Silver print, the image measuring 13½x10⅛ inches (34.3x25.7 cm.), the sheet slightly larger, with Jacobi's signature in pencil on recto.

Taken by Lotte Jacobi at Einstein's request for a 1938 Life magazine feature but then rejected by the magazine, this image of Einstein is one of the most recognized photographs of the German physicist. It was first exhibited in 1942 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as part of the collective show, "A Comparative Exhibition of Twentieth-Century Portraits." Einstein and Jacobi had known each other previously in their native Germany, from which both were forced to flee from the Nazi regime - Einstein in 1933 and Jacobi in 1935. The two collaborated in setting up the photograph, which was taken in a relaxed setting in Einstein's home in Princeton, NJ, together deciding that Einstein should appear in his leather jacket - a distinctive feature of this portrait, setting it apart from the many other portraits made of him throughout his life. Though this photograph was not chosen by Life's photo editors, who apparently thought posing Einstein in a leather jacket was not appropriate, Jacobi did have three black and white photos of the physicist appear on the second page of the two-page feature spread on Einstein that ran in the April 11, 1938 edition of the magazine.

Publication
Wise, Kelly, Lotte Jacobi (Addison House, Danbury, NH) 1978, pp. 10, 23, 100
Gasterland-Gustafsson, Gretchen, Lotte Jacobi, Albert Einstein, Smart History, The Center for Public Art History
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