Sylvia von Harden

Who was Sylvia von Harden?

Sylvia von Harden, also called Sylvia von Halle, was a German journalist and poet. During her career as a journalist, she wrote for many newspapers in Germany and England. She is perhaps best known as the subject of a painting by Otto Dix.

Born Sylvia von Halle in Hamburg, von Harden wrote a literary column for the monthly Das junge Deutschland from 1918 to 1920, and wrote for Die Rote Erde from 1919 to 1923. From 1915 to 1923, she lived with the writer Ferdinand Hardekopf, with whom she had a son. During the 1920s she lived in Berlin, and published two volumes of poetry in 1920 and 1927.

She was famously portrayed in Otto Dix's painting entitled "Bildnis der Journalistin Sylvia von Harden". An ambivalent image of the New Woman, it depicts von Harden with bobbed hair and monocle, seated at a cafe table with a cigarette in her hand and a cocktail in front of her. This painting is recreated in an opening scene of the film Cabaret.

In 1959, von Harden wrote an article, "Erinnerungen an Otto Dix", in which she described the genesis of the portrait. Dix had met her on the street, and declared: