Renate von Gebhardt Photohraphs

Renate von Gebhardt

Renate von Gebhardt (1921–2019), daughter of the writer Hertha von Gebhardt, was the influential editor-in-chief of children's radio at RIAS Berlin throughout the post-war period. To this day, her RIAS show Der Onkel Tobias (Uncle Tobias) is considered a Berlin legend.

Von Gebhardt never made a secret of her love for women, not even in the Adenauer period, with its strict conservatism and repressive notion of women. In the early 1950s, she simultaneously fell in love with four dancers from Mary Wigman’s school, whom she accompanied as a journalist on their tour with the Swiss companyCircus Knie, which had hired them to dance in a water ballet.

There is no record of their appearance in ‘Le cirque sous l’eau’, but surviving photographs tell the story of life backstage. The focus of the exhibition, however, is on images that reveal the appeal these women held for the photographer. With a perfect sense of timing, she used her simple camera to capture everyday moments, her subjects’ camaraderie, and the magic of this adventurous trip.