Else Lasker-Schüler the Painter

Else Lasker-Schüler was a diverse and multi-disciplinary artist. Besides being a poet and author, a playwright and woman of the stage, she also produced paintings and drawings. She would illustrate the covers of her books of poetry herself and would intersperse them with her own illustrations. Not only that, but painting and drawing were also a part of her daily life. Today we have quite a few of the poet's works of art: Lithographs, charcoal, chalk and pencil drawings, as well as ink drawings in black and white and in color. Essentially, painting and drawing accompanied her whole life. She drew on paper of all sorts, whenever the opportunity presented itself – in cafes, while travelling, while waiting, often next to a text she wrote, on a piece of paper that had another use, or on the other side of a paper that had been written on.

In retrospect, looking at the entirety of Else Lasker-Schüler's work – her poetry, plays, and prose, as well as her paintings and drawings – it is clear that her world as a painter was deep and complicated. Her paintings and drawings bear clear characteristics which reflect aspects of the soul of this diverse artist who crossed borders in her life and works.

The figures in the paintings are always looking toward the left. Many of them are in motion. The figures are elongated and childish, and often it is hard to identify their gender. They are characterized by an androgynous quality. Their facial features almost always repeat themselves: slightly slanted eyes, a sharp nose, their gaze cast forward and down. They seem quiet, wrapped up in themselves, certainly when they are alone, but also when they are in a group. Often, the figure of Yusuf, "the Prince of Thebes", appears. He was a character that Else Lasker-Schüler created as an alter-ego, and who existed in her real life. Broadly, from a cultural-historical perspective, and in the eyes of the great fate that ruled her stormy and confused life, Yusuf was Else Lasker-Schüler.

The silent figure reflected in the paintings touches the heart. The perspective catches him exactly where his eyes can't be seen and the viewer remains with the sense that his eyelids are half-closed. Without a doubt, we find here reflections of the poet's inner world; she feels dismissed, exiled and forced to wander. At the same time, that silent look may also be an expression of timelessness, and reveal the sources of the character in Else Lasker-Schüler's world: Ancient Egypt, Commedia dell'arte, the world of theatre (and maybe even puppetry) as well as evidence of the growing questioning spirit that was expressed in her written work until the end of her life. Ancient Egypt is present in the paintings in her general preference for two-dimensional figures, seen from the side, as well as her choice of primary colors – red, blue and yellow, just as in the ancient murals and papyruses of the Egyptians.

On the one hand, the abundance of small drawings on the margins of texts and in letters, on napkins and random pieces of paper, can give the viewer the mistaken impression that this was an unimportant casual hobby in relation to the literary activity of the great poet. On the other hand, a broader view of her graphic works and paintings reveal that Else Lasker-Schüler was indeed a painter in the full meaning of the word. Proof of this is that, today, almost 70 years after her death, her paintings are very sought-after by collectors.

By early 1933, Lasker-Schüler's artistic career was at its height. The previous year she had won the distinguished Kleist Prize. The Jewish poet, author, playwright and artist occupied a central place in the artistic community in Berlin. She was widely admired by many artists. Her poems were published in journals and anthologies and painters painted her portrait. She gave poetry readings throughout the German-speaking world, from Prague to Vienna, from Zurich to Berlin and in many other German cities.

However, shortly after the Nazis rose to power, her homeland began to turn its back on her. Lasker-Schüler was attacked in the media and even suffered physical violence against her. In March of 1933, she left Berlin, the city she loved and the center of her creative activity. She escaped to Switzerland. As a German citizen in Switzerland, she was able to obtain a temporary resident visa. And so her long battle to extend her stay in Switzerland until the terror passed began. It very quickly became clear to her that the terror would not pass, but indeed, was only becoming worse. Her material situation became more untenable each day and her visa expired after only a few months. In her fight against the Swiss authorities, she was helped by a Jewish-Swiss lawyer, Emil Raas.

The loyal lawyer worked to the best of his ability, and the relationship between the poet and her representative bore a blossoming correspondence. As of today, the Emil Raas Collection at The National Library contains 160 letters from Else Lasker-Schüler to Emil Raas. He acted on her behalf for many years. Again and again, she asked him to arrange her visa. Very quickly it became clear that if she would be sent back to Germany, she would be sent to a concentration camp. Since she did not have wealth or a source of income, her status was complicated from the authorities' point of view. Else Lasker-Schüler saw herself as a small person taking a stand against an omnipotent mechanism. Her letters range between a missive wherein she explains to Raas, clearly and lucidly, the mess of her bureaucratic and economic problems, and wilder pieces of text, which fully express the heights of her vigorous writing style. Many of the letters contain illustrations by Lasker-Schüler and in one of them she even drew the panel of high court judges and the president. Facing him is a hand lifted to take an oath, evidently her own. Lasker-Schüler's writing reads like the script of a play based on her own life, blurring the lines between reality and imagination. With her life balanced on the scales, she worked through her material reality in her letters to Raas and in illustrations accompanied by text – always as she is, always herself.

The letters and the many drawings came to safety in the end. They were donated to the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem by the daughters of Emil Raas who live in Israel.

"I was born in Thebes, Egypt even though I came into the world in Elberfeld in the land of the Rein." These are the words that the poet Else Lasker-Schüler uses to introduce herself. She is referring to her character, Yusuf, Prince of Thebes, who served her in her life and in her works for decades. The character unites various distant cultures: Ancient Egypt, the Arab Near-East, and the worlds that Else Lasker-Schüler came from as a Jew and as a German artist.

Elsa Lasker-Schüler was exposed to archeological and artistic artifacts from Ancient Egypt that were on display in a museum in Berlin during the last decade of the 19th century. In her paintings, she adopted quite a bit of the aesthetic sensibilities of ancient Egypt, and this encounter also helped her create the character of the Egyptian prince from Thebes. Evidence of this can be seen in a photograph of Else Lasker-Schüler from 1912 for a theatrical production (which was never produced). The photograph is taken in profile, displaying her boyish, thin body, wearing "oriental" clothing. She is playing on a simple flute, in a position that is reminiscent of the murals of Ancient Egypt.

Yusuf of Thebes brings to mind the Biblical Joseph – the man who united dreams and reality, the innocent boy who was snatched from his house and his culture. He learned to survive in a foreign culture and thrived there, but also never forgot where he came from and the deep source of his identity. No less important, this is Joseph the dreamer, who knew how to use his dreams to create reality, and who certainly aroused in the poet feelings of identification and perhaps also longing.

However, this character is not only Egyptian or Biblical. Yusuf of Thebes was Yusuf, that is to say, a young Arab. He appears first on the cover of the book, "Hebrew Ballads" from 1913, as a waiter wearing a galabiya presenting the city of Thebes. At the gate of the city there is a Star of David and above it, a crescent. The character of Yusuf comes to life in various ways throughout Else Lasker-Schüler's work. She even drew her son, Paul, in the style of Yusuf. Yusuf the wanderer, a resident of a real city as well as an imaginary place, Yusuf who yearns for a life here and now, Yusuf the dreamer, who suffers until he achieves success, Yusuf who seeks a homeland and home, Yusuf who unites cultures, religions and nations. Yusuf the prince, who doesn't always receive recognition of his worth from the world, but who always knows who he is and what he is able to give, both in imagination and reality – everything that Else Lasker-Schüler dreamed to do, to be, to change in the world, was expressed in Yusuf of Thebes.

He was a lot more than a literary character and an abstract aesthetic-philosophical principal. "Yusuf" (i.e. the Prince Yusuf of Thebes) was also a character that Else Lasker Schüler saw as a part of her identity. Even in her postcard to Agnon, in 1933, she calls herself Yusuf. Yusuf of Thebes helped Lasker-Schüler created a complicated identity – multiple "I"s that combined a masculine side and a feminine side and pointed to a sense of Jewish tradition along with a cross-cultural identity; "I"s that uncover aspects of the past as well as aspects of the present and even the future. Both the creative "I" and the "I" that lives in this world in the active sense are expressed in Else Lasker-Schüler's Yusuf.