Ellen Auerbach (1906 - 2004)

Ellen Auerbach

Ellen Auerbach, born Ellen Rosenberg, is an American photographer of German-Jewish descent and a master of avant-garde photography.

Ellen studied at the Baden State School of Art and continued her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart before meeting photographer Greta Stern (1904-1999) in Berlin. Together they opened Ringl+pit, a photography and design studio specializing in advertising, fashion and portrait photography. The photographer is most remembered for her groundbreaking work at this particular studio. Ellen, who also experimented with film, made two short black-and-white films.

In 1933, Ellen emigrated to Palestine and opened a children's portrait studio there. A few years later she moved with her husband Walter Auerbach to the United States, where she worked in a private art collection, taught photography, made films and photographs to study children's behavior, and worked as an educational therapist.

The Ringl+pit works and photographic oeuvre of Ellen Auerbach and Greta Stern were rediscovered in the 1980s, and a series of solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Germany followed.