Lotte Jacobi

Who was Lotte Jacobi?

Johanna Alexandra "Lotte" Jacobi was a German photographer, who immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi Germany.

Born in Thorn in Prussia, she was the eldest of three children. She spent parts of her life in Berlin, New York City, and New Hampshire. Her portraits of celebrated subjects included Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Robert Frost, Marc Chagall, Eleanor Roosevelt, Alfred Stieglitz, J.D. Salinger, Paul Robeson, May Sarton, Pauline Koner, Berenice Abbott and Edward Steichen.

The name "Lotte" was a nickname given to her by her father. She always used it professionally and was never known by her birth name outside her family. In 1916 she married Fritz Honig, and a year later she gave birth to a son, John. The marriage did not last, and in 1924 they divorced. She put her son in school in Bavaria and went to school herself in Munich.

After completing her formal studies, Jacobi entered the family photography business in 1927. During this same period she began her professional work as a photographer, and she also produced four films, the most important being Portrait of the Artist, a study of Josef Scharl. From October 1932 to January 1933, she traveled to the Soviet Union, in particular to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, taking photographs of what she saw. She returned to Berlin in February 1933, one month after Hitler came to power. As persecution against Jews increased, she left Germany with her son, arriving in September 1935 in New York City, where she opened a studio in Manhattan.