ringl, sad

Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach created portraits of one another after establishing their studio, ringl + pit—formed from their respective nicknames, “Ringl” (Stern) and “Pit” (Auerbach). Working during the 1930s, a time of increased independence for women in Europe, their Berlin-based photography studio created some of the era’s most innovative and experimental advertising and portraiture. Their groundbreaking partnership was cut short with the rise of Nazism. Recognizing the danger of being queer, Jewish, and avant-garde artists in Hitler’s Germany, they fled their homeland in 1933.