Maria Netter. Art critic and photographer
28 October 2015 – 7 February 2016
Museum Tinguely is showing a documentary presentation featuring approximately 100 extraordinary and hitherto largely unpublished reproductions of black-and-white photographs by the journalist and art critic Maria Netter (1917–1982), who resided and passed away in Basel. Maria Netter, who came from a Jewish family, left Berlin in 1936 in order to study in Basel. Following studies in Art History, she went on to become one of the most influential and courageous critics of the contemporary art scene in the German-speaking region. Self-taught photographer Maria Netter was rarely seen without her Leica M3 compact camera, which was introduced on the market in the early 1950s and which allowed her to take snapshots without a flash. Her artistic forays gave rise, among others, to photos of artists, gallery owners, collectors, museum curators and exhibiting institutions, but also of many friends. In multiple cases she used her own photographs to illustrate her texts.