Ré Soupault

Ré Soupault (29 October 1901 – 12 March 1996) born known as Meta Erna Niemeyer, was a French-German artist, educated at the Bauhaus. She is known for a diversity of artistic works as a photographer, fashion designer, and also as translator.

Education and early life She was born in Pommerania in the then German town (present-day Polish) of Bublitz in 1901. In 1921, she began to study at the Bauhaus in Weimar. She had designed fashion before, like modern culottes for the Parisian Paul Poiret. Working as a freelance photographer in Tunis, Ré Soupault published reportages for numerous magazines from August 1938 onwards. She photographed emigrants, pilgrims, nomads and in the palace of the Tunisian monarch, and also took self-portraits. The French government acquired photographs of her for little money.

She began to be interested in the role of women in a Muslim country and learnt about the existence of the "Quartier réservé" in Tunis. This was a closed district to which women who had been rejected by their families and society were deported and where prostitution was their only source of income. Ré Soupault's good relations with the authorities allowed her access to this neighbourhood for two days, accompanied by a local policeman. She took portraits of women in almost empty rooms and captured their gazes. These were the only photos ever taken there and were later published in the book Ré Soupault – Die Fotografin der magischen Sekunde.

Personal life At the Bauhaus, she got to know her first husband Hans Richter in 1922

Following the arrest of Phillippe in March 1942 by German troops in Tunis, they fled to New York in 1943. In the following years, the couple travelled through South America for the Agence France-Press.

Selected works

Photographs

Ré Soupault. Künstlerin im Zentrum der Avantgarde, Manfred Metzner (ed.), Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg, 2011 Die Fotografin der magischen Sekunde, Manfred Metzner (ed.), Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg, 2007 . Philippe Soupault. Portraits Fotografien 1934-1944, Manfred Metzner (ed.), Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg, 2003 . Frauenportraits aus dem « Quartier réservé » in Tunis, Manfred Metzner (ed.), Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg, 2001 . Ré Soupault. Photographies 1934-1952, Manfred Metzner (ed.), Goethe Institut Inter Nationes e.V., Munich, 2001. Tunisie 1936-1940, with a preface by Abdelwahab Meddeb, bilingual edition French/German, Manfred Metzner (ed.), Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg, 1996 . Paris 1934-1938, Manfred Metzner (ed.), Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg, 1994.