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Trude Fleischmann studied art history in Paris for a semester as a teenager and then completed three years of photography training at the k. u. k. Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie und Reproduktionsverfahren (Imperial and Royal Teaching and Research Institute for Photography and Reproduction processes). At the age of 21, she did an internship with the adored Viennese photographer Madame d'Ora, who, however, classified the young woman as phlegmatic and threw her out after two months of stupid retouching work. Fleischmann worked for Hermann Schieberth for three years before moving into her own studio in the 1st District. Fleischmann saw herself as an artist, not a craftswoman: she loved portraits, personal pictures without stiff poses that emphasized social status. She maintained close contact with customers from the dance, theater and art worlds, with Adolf Loos, Karl Kraus, Alban Berg; v. a. to Max Reinhardt's Theater in der Josefstadt, to Paula Wessely or Helene Thimig. Fleischmann kept her portraits relatively conventional. Her work from the 1920s was created primarily in the studio, with artificial light and a glass plate camera. At this point, she was only taking pictures outdoors for travel reports; But then – technically in vogue – with a two-eyed Rolleiflex. In the 1930s, Fleischmann was also inspired by the New Vision and experimented with bird's-eye views or unusual image details. However, her relationship to modernity was more reflected in her preference for unconventional contemporaries, for the women's rights activists Marianne Hainisch and Rosa Mayrede or the dancer Grete Wiesenthal. Claire Bauroff photographed her in 1925 as a muscular nude with ancient, marble-like skin. Fleischmann's view of the female nude was in contradiction to the male gaze. Under the influence of the life reform movement, she interpreted nudity and nude dancing as a rebellion against the narrowness of traditional conventions. After the annexation, the Jewish woman Trude Fleischmann temporarily fled to Paris to stay with friends, but returned to Vienna until a former intern got her a visa for the USA. In 1940, Fleischmann opened a studio for fashion and portrait photography in Manhattan. She photographed for magazines such as Vogue and portrayed exiles, e.g. Albert Einstein. Her works were later purchased by the Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, the New York Public Library and the Leo Baeck Institute.
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