Lisel Haas

Elise Haas (12 October 1898 – 20 May 1989), known as Lisel, was a German-born British Jewish photographer, whose professional career spanned nearly seven decades. and a significant collection of her theatre photography, donated by Haas before her death, is held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Early life Lisel Haas was born on 12 October 1898 to Jewish parents in Mönchengladbach, Germany, a city situated near Düsseldorf and the Netherlands border. Her mother, Bertha Haas (née Jonas), died on 26 April 1918. Her brother, Hans Erich Haas, worked as a psychoanalyst, and emigrated to Birmingham, England in 1936 alongside his wife. In her youth, Haas trained in painting, which later developed into a career in photography. She began working as a photographer in 1923, establishing her own photography business. In 1928, she opened her own photography studio at Albertusstraße 37, Mönchengladbach. Haas primarily worked as a photojournalist, and in 1929 began working for Weltwarte, a Catholic magazine, while having photographs published in many other magazines and newspapers. She also worked in theatre photography, working at Gladbach Town Theatre.

In Mönchengladbach, Haas also met her life partner, with her life partner, Anna Alwine Margarethe Bermbach, known as Grete Bermbach. Bermbach had studied at Krefeld School of Arts and Crafts and joined Haas’ photography business in the mid-1920s, initially training as an assistant. She was appointed as official photographer at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, where she worked from 1940 to 1961, photographing almost every production. During this period she photographed many promising young actors, including Albert Finney, Ian Richardson, Brian Blessed, June Brown and Derek Jacobi. Haas became close friends with Owen and with the then-director of Birmingham Rep, Barry Jackson. She also photographed productions at the Birmingham Crescent Theatre, the Alexandra Theatre Birmingham, Belgrade Theatre Coventry and the Kidderminster Playhouse.

Reflecting on her theatre work, Haas noted that ‘the greatest difficulty in stage photography lies in the effect of the acting on the artist’, that following a particularly powerful or moving performance, actors were often exhausted. She observed, however, that ‘we often get the best pictures from the least important plays’. with further copies in the Birmingham City Archives.

Following Barry Jackson's death in April 1961, Haas fell out with the new management at the Rep, who hired new, young male photographers without informing her. She resigned from her position in 1961. In October 1965, Lisel resigned from her position as official photographer at the Crescent Theatre. After this, she moved away entirely from theatre photography, moving to commissioned, studio portraiture. Haas was close to his daughter, her niece Dorothy, who later served as a source for biographical accounts of her aunt's life.

Haas and Bermbach moved into 4 Grove Avenue, Mosely in 1949. The house itself had been bequeathed to them by George Owen, the Alexandra Theatre producer who had originally sponsored Haas's work permit, having lived with them for a period after his home was destroyed during the Birmingham Blitz.

Haas took immense pride in her work and was a vigorous advocate for her professional rights, regularly pursuing organisations who reproduced her work without paying copyright fees or providing appropriate credit. These arguments have been questioned on several grounds: that Haas was not disconnected from her family, having travelled to Birmingham with her father and joined her brother who had already settled there; that such a reading reduces Haas's considerable commercial skill and intelligence to gendered assumptions unlikely to be applied to a male photographer; and that it risks imposing heteronormative assumptions upon her life, given that Haas lived with Grete Bermbach as her life partner for the entirety of her adult life.

In 2025, Stolpersteines were laid in Mönchengladbach in memory of Lisel Haas, her father Adolf Haas, and Grete Bermbach. The ceremony was initiated by Ilona Gerhards of the city of Mönchengladbach.

In 2026, Bertz Associates produced an exhibition and accompanying publication at the Library of Birmingham dedicated to Haas's life and work. The exhibition, developed in collaboration with the Library of Birmingham's archive, presented theatre photography, portraits and personal photographs, alongside responses from contemporary artists. The accompanying publication, Discovering Lisel Haas, edited by Iris Bertz and Jen Wilbur, was published in July 2026. Both the exhibition and publication were supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, The National Archives and the John Feeney Charitable Trust. The John Feeney Charitable Trust additionally funded the commissioning of a blue plaque in remembrance of Lisel Haas, along with a series of public archive exploration workshops to raise awareness of the archive.

Haas' theatre and portrait photography made significant contributions to the visual history of Birmingham. Her theatre photography provides a comprehensive documentation of Birmingham Repertory Theatre productions across two decades, while her family portrait photography preserves documented memories of numerous Birmingham families. Haas believed that photography was ‘a universal language through which we are able to remember events and personal memories’, and felt that ‘life provided the link between her and her sitters, and gave the pictures their force and effect’. As a Jewish refugee photographer, targeted by the Nazi regime and forced to flee her home country, her body of work resists attempted historical erasure. Her partially catalogued archive is a significant resource for researchers of twentieth century photography, theatre history and the history of Birmingham's Jewish community.