Elsa Niemeyer-Moxter XIX-XX

Born in Germany and spending most of her career in Munich, painter Elsa Niemeyer-Moxter remains relatively unknown, and her biography is still sparsely documented. She began working as an illustrator in the late 1890s, producing expressive ink-and-wash drawings for the Munich art press, often charming or anecdotal in subject, and frequently imbued with light humor.

Collaborating with artistic and literary magazines such as Die Fliegenden Blätter, Meggendorfer Blätter, and Jugend (the latter founded in 1896 by Georg Hirth), she laid the foundations of her reputation within Jugendstil graphic art. She also contributed illustrations to Simplicissimus, the famous satirical weekly launched the same year by Albert Langen and Thomas Theodor Heine, modeled after the Parisian Gil Blas.

Although her name remains little known outside German-speaking circles, her drawings earned her recognition within editorial and artistic circles, and several of her works are today preserved in the collections of Munich’s Lenbachhaus.