Hélène Reimann (1893-1987) was born in Breslau, Poland. A mother of seven children, she was a shoe seller. From 1938, she was interned several times in a psychiatric hospital in Poland and then in Germany where she lived after escaping her homeland.
In the 1940s in Bayreuth, Germany, she devoted all her time to drawing, mostly objects, dresses, shoes, and furniture, but also portraits, animals, fruit, and flowers.
In 1975, when she was 82 years old, Professor Böcker discovered her drawings that she was hiding for fear that the nurses in the psychiatric hospital would destroy them. Professor Böcker encouraged her to exhibit her works regularly in the Bayreuth hospital.
The works photographed in this blog are from her 1979-1987 collection. They are graphite pencil and coloured pencil on beige paper printed on the reverse.
Photographed in the Zadkine Museum, Paris, November 2021.
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
MARTINA NICOLLS