Marta Hoepffner (1912–2000)
Biography by Dr. Birgit Bosold.
Marta Hoepffner, Magische Realität Farbsolarisation, 1957, Lesbian Legacies #1 Grace of Desire, Berlin 2025. Courtesy: Kressbronn Museum Lände (c) Max Eulitz VG Bild-Kunst.
What matters to me is the visual concretization of a reality that cannot be illustrated through painterly means: light, space, movement.
– Marta Hoepffner
Marta Hoepffner’s Biography
Marta Hoepffner (1912–2000) was exposed to avantgarde ideas early on, being the niece of Dada co-founder Hugo Ball. Influenced by Dada, the Bauhaus, and her studies with Willi Baumeister (1898–1955) at the Frankfurt School of Applied Arts (now the Staedelschule) a leading figure of abstract painting she developed a multifaceted body of work that ranged from surrealist photomontages of the 1930s to light-kinetic objects in the 1960s. Technically accomplished, she mastered a wide array of complex techniques such as solarization, multiple and double exposures with great precision.
When Baumeister was dismissed by the Nazis in 1933 as a “degenerate“ artist, Hoepffner also left the Frankfurt school. In the years that followed, commercial commissions in advertising and portrait photography ensured her financial survival and sustained her artistic practice. In 1937, she undertook several study trips to Paris. We don’t know whom she met there perhaps Cahun and Moore, or Florence Henri? Who can say?
Her studio was destroyed during the war, but she managed to save much of her work. In 1949, she founded the “Marta Hoepffner Private Photography School” in Hofheim am Taunus together with her sister Madeleine, and from 1962 onward, she ran it in partnership with her life companion, Irm Schoffers (1927–2008).
Hoepffner was one of the most prominent names in the experimental photography scene of postwar West Germany, and her school was regarded as one of the country’s leading institutions.
As both artist and educator, she played a key role in establishing experimental photography as a distinct art form. Since 2002, the city of Hofheim has honored her legacy with the Marta Hoepffner Photography Prize.
Related Link
Lesbian Legacies – Kunstraum Scherben’s three-part exhibition series offers a fascinating perspective on the role of lesbian artists in art history.