When we think of Hannah Arendt today, we may well have an iconic portrait by the photographer Fred Stein in mind. He photographed the political theorist on numerous occasions, sometimes during portrait sessions of several hours in her living room, and masterfully captured Arendt\u2019s particular charisma. Ulrike Kuschel, the project assistant for our current exhibition \u2018Hannah Arendt and the Twentieth Century\u2019<\/a> tells us on the DHM blog what makes his pictures so special and how the two of them ever came to meet at all.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2018I first encountered Hannah Arendt as \u2013 I\u2019d say \u2013 a pop icon, an intellectual person, as a photo actually. \u2026 the intellectual woman \u2013 a figure that we don\u2019t often get to see in our everyday imagery. And what she displayed, so to speak \u2013 intellectualism \u2013 is embodied in the way she sits there, in the way she holds the cigarette\u2019.<\/strong> <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to tell from such a brief description exactly which photo was meant by Stefanie Lohaus, a cultural expert, when interviewed by the curator of our exhibition, Monika Boll. It stands to reason, however, that she was referring to one of the iconic portraits by the photographer Fred Stein, who masterfully succeeded in capturing Arendt\u2019s special charisma.<\/p>\n Self-portrait with Rolleiflex, Fred Stein, New York, 1941 \u00a9 Stanfordville, New York, Fred Stein Archive<\/p><\/div>\n Fred Stein\u2019s photographs of Hannah Arendt convey an image and a look that remain inimitable today. The first portraits were made in 1944.<\/p>\n Hannah Arendt, Fred Stein, New York, 1944 \u00a9 Stanfordville, New York, Fred Stein Archive<\/p><\/div>\n Afterwards she sat for portrait sessions with him in 1949, 1960 and 1966. An undated contact sheet of portraits, which is in the Fred Stein Archive, contains other pictures taken in the same place as the photos from 1944, perhaps on 95th Street, 317 West.[1]<\/a> It was here that Arendt lived until 1951, occupying two furnished rooms with her husband, Heinrich Bl\u00fccher, and her mother, Martha Arendt Beerwald (1874\u20131948). The fact that Hannah Arendt commissioned Fred Stein more than once shows that she was more than satisfied with the way in which he portrayed her.<\/p>\n![\"Self-portrait](\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/0767_Fred_Stein.jpg\")
![\"Hannah](\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/0821_Hannah_Arendt_-1944_full_image_lying_down.jpg\")