Lotte Meitner-Graf

Lotte Meitner-Graf (17 November 1899–May 1973 , born as Charlotte Graf), was a noted Austrian black-and-white portrait photographer. She was married to physicist Lise Meitner's brother Walter (1891–1961).

Early life and career Charlotte Graf was born on 17 November 1899 and lived with her family in Vienna. She studied a diploma course in photography at the Graphische Lehr und Versuchsanstalt during World War I. She took further photography training in Munich and Warsaw before returning to Vienna in 1925.

Photography Graf established her Vienna studio in 1926 and it was soon successful. She employed three trainees (Hermi Friedmann, Elizabeth Back and Olga Seybert). Her studio shared an address with the pottery studio of Lucie Rie. Many of the people she had photographed in Vienna visited her studio in London to have photographs taken having established prominent careers. The studio was on the fifth floor and six people were needed to manoeuvre a baby grand piano across a rooftop so that Meitner-Graf could photograph pianists. including: polymath Albert Schweitzer, musicians Marion Anderson, Otto Klemperer and Yehudi Menuhin; actors John Gielgud and Danny Kaye; scientists Irène Joliot-Curie, Lord Blackett, Lawrence Bragg, Dorothy Hodgkin, and Max Perutz; leaders such as Sālote Tupou III, Jan Smuts, and Mahatma Gandhi; and author Arthur Ransome (whose photograph is in the collection held by the Lakeland Arts Trust). Meitner-Graf's photograph of her sister-in-law, Lise Meitner, was the image used when Meitner became the first woman to appear on a national postage stamp in 1978.

Meitner-Graf also specialised in photographing artworks for organisations including the British Museum and National Gallery. Her work featured in a Warburg Institute exhibition panel curated by Kenneth Clark, entitled Portrait and Character. – Kendrick was arrested by the Gestapo shortly after their flight departed. Meitner-Graf later expressed thanks to him by taking his portrait.

In 2016, works were exhibited at Dimbola Lodge, former home of Julia Margaret Cameron, curated by Colin Ford who also curated an exhibition of her work for the Garrick Club in 2017. but closed early due to the COVID-19 pandemic.