Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler

Self portrait in red

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (1899 – 1940) was a German painter of the avant-garde. She was murdered under a forced euthanasia program of Nazi Germany, and her work was declared "degenerate art".
She came into contact with the Dresden Secession Group and became part of the circle around Otto Dix, Otto Griebel, and Conrad Felixmüller.
In 1929, she suffered a nervous breakdown because of financial and partnership difficulties and was committed to a psychiatric institution in Hamburg-Friedrichsberg. Her terrible fate under the Nazis reminds of one  of the characters of the film "Never look away" (2018) of the director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Her art is of a vigorous kind. It is not difficult to see a kinship with some of her contemporaries, like Dix and Grosz. But Lohse-Wächtler didn’t know her colleagues’ fame. Until 1994, when an association for the promotion of her art was founded. A number of exhibitions of her works have been held since then. 
 

Self portrait