
What connects Friedl Dicker and Maria Luiko? Both were successful Jewish female artists among the most respected talents of the 1920s and 1930s. Dicker was born in Vienna and studied at the Bauhaus in Weimar before making a name for herself as an interior designer. Luiko came from Munich and regularly exhibited there as an artist. Her work was diverse — she illustrated books for writer Ernst Toller and designed theater puppets. Today, their work is known to few. Their lives and careers came to an end at the hands of the National Socialists. Dicker was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and Luiko in Fort IX in Kaunas. In a comprehensive group exhibition, the Jewish Museum Berlin commemorates the pair, along with over 60 other Jewish craftswomen, designers, and painters who paved the way for subsequent generations as pioneers in their disciplines.
Silversmith Emmy Roth was one of the first women in Germany to pass the master craftsman’s examination in the male-dominated field. Her tea and coffee pots are so elegant and minimalist that they could still be used in Berlin cafés today. Children’s book author and painter Tom Seidmann-Freud, niece of Sigmund Freud, was part of the dazzling artistic scene around the Romanisches Café in Charlottenburg and created fairy tales so expressionistically that they still inspire adults today. Curator Michal Friedlander traces their lives with an eye for detail and a wealth of knowledge. We get to know women who fought against social conventions, were politically active, and unwaveringly pursued their art and life dreams. In addition to well-known figures such as textile artist and Bauhaus teacher Anni Albers, it’s the women of the so-called “lost generation” who can be rediscovered today (10.07.) at 17h in the Jewish Museum Berlin to music by the Balagan Sisters. So that names like Friedl Dicker and Maria Luiko do not remain unknown in the future.
Text: Laura Storfner / Photos: Jens Ziehe / Credit: Emmy Roth, Kaffee- und Teeservice, Berlin 1931, Silber, getrieben; Horn; Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Inv.-Nr. 2010/143/0; Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Jewish Museum Berlin, Lindenstr.9-14, 10969 Berlin-Kreuzberg: map
“Defiance. Jewish Women and Design in the Modern Era” 11.07.–23.11.2025. Opening Thu 10.07. from 19h (exhibition open from 17h), free admission on the opening night.
@juedischesmuseumberlin