Photomechanical Nachleben and Queer Failure: The ‘Aktfotografie’ of Krull and Fleischmann

This paper examines the pioneering work of Germaine Krull (1897) and Trude Fleischmann (1895), two Mitteleuropean women who defied societal norms as secular, middle‐class, emancipated and queer Jewish women working in photography. The focus of this study is a re‐examination of the early nude photographic portraits they both created between 1924 and 1925. Using the lenses of recent queer and visual studies, I aim to situate the gaze of these young photographers within the broader cultural contexts of the era. This entails placing their work in dialogue with influential currents such as the ‘Neue Sehen’, while also scrutinising its reception, in the form of photomechanical reproductions, within the official medical and media spheres of the time. Ultimately, this article uncovers how queer photographic practices both decentred and redefined representations of the female nude in the dynamic — and dramatically ephemeral — cultural landscape of the 1920s.