Juliette Lasserre

Juliette Lasserre, (née Ilse Juliette Ziegert; 14 April 1907 – 9 July 2007), was a Swiss–German photographer and literary translator.

Youth Juliette Lasserre was born on 14 April 1907 in Plainpalais, Geneva. Her parents were Maximilian Ziegert (1863–1913) and Ilse Grund (1880–1928). She was the youngest of their four children. Her three brothers were Hellmuth Ziegert (1899–1949), Erich Ziegert (1900–1978) and Hans-Peter Ziegert (1902–1977). Her father died prematurely in 1913. In the mid-1920s she began training as a kindergarten teacher. She then trained as a photographer at the Lette-Haus in Berlin and also worked for Karlheinz Martin at the Volksbühne in Berlin.

Professional career About a year after her mother's suicide, Juliette Lasserre moved to Paris in 1929 to join her aunt Helen Hessel and her uncle Franz Hessel, who were both living in a ménage à trois with Henri-Pierre Roché. She found work as an assistant to Germaine Krull and married the Swiss sculptor André Lasserre in 1933, thus obtaining Swiss nationality. The couple initially lived in a studio house at 147 rue Broca, until Juliette Lasserre opened a photography studio on rue de Seine in the late 1930s. She met the Italian-American photographer Maria Eisner who, with Pierre Boucher and René Zuber, had founded the Alliance-Photo After a stay in Germany and because of Juliette Lasserre's work at the Alliance-Photo agency, the couple was watched by the Sûreté and finally arrested in early April 1940 after military documents were found in the apartment above the photographic studio on rue de Seine. When the city was occupied by German troops on 14 June 1940, the couple had already been transferred to Toulon and were awaiting trial. the couple were freed and left France to take refuge in Potsdam with Juliette Lasserre's second brother, Erich Ziegert, an art dealer and member of the Nazi Party. Ideological tensions forced the Lasserres to leave Potsdam for Bavaria where they managed to survive until the end of the war, living near Prien am Chiemsee. After the war, Juliette Lasserre found work for the Münchner Zeitung through the intervention of Hans Habe and went to London in 1949. In 1952, Juliette and André Lasserre divorced. writers, actors and gallery owners such as Chaïm Soutine, Francis Picabia, Man Ray, André Breton, Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pablo Picasso, Antonin Artaud, Raymond Rouleau, Robert Desnos and Léopold Zborowski.

In addition to her work for the press and her exhibitions, she also found clients in the world of fashion designers. She created collages for the aforementioned fashion magazine Heim, some of which were done in collaboration with Dora Maar and Dora Kallmus, alias Madame d'Ora. The influence of surrealism is recognisable. In the years following the Second World War, she continued to devote herself to both social and human themes, such as the destruction, expulsions and atrocities of the war in Germany and Europe.

Her photographic archive is believed to be lost. 1935: Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Pavillon de Marsan, Exposition Internationale de la Photographie Contemporaine, Paris. 1937 : Galerie Billiet-Worms, Visages d'Enfants, 30, Rue La Boëtie, Paris. 1937 : Galerie de l'art et industrie, Exhibition of Photography, Paris.

Publications

Translations Vincent van Gogh, 1948, Aus den Briefen an seinen Bruder. Translated into German by Juliette Lasserre and Rudolf Schröder, Drei Eulen Verlag, Düsseldorf François Porché, 1954, Leo Tolstoy. Die Wahrheit über sein Leben. Original title: Portrait psychologique de Tolstoï. Translated into German by Hedda Eulenberg and Juliette Lasserre. Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf Peter Abrahams, 1956...dort wo die weissen Schatten fallen. Original title: Tell Freedom: Memories of Africa. Translated into German by Juliette Lasserre and Eva Kuhn, Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt Peter Abrahams, 1961, Schwarzer Mann im weissen Dschungel. Original title: Mine Boy. Translated into German by Juliette Lasserre and Eva Kuhn, Rex Verlag, Munich

Articles Les Gitans d'Autriche sous l'occupation nazie. Monde Gitan, number 20, 1971, Association Notre-Dame des Gitans, 99, Rue du Bac, Paris 7ème.