Marianne Breslauer was born in Berlin on November 20, 1909. The daughter of Dorothea Breslauer and Prof. Alfred Breslauer launched her career as a photographer in 1927.
Having trained at ‘Lette–Haus’, Berlin, Breslauer travelled to Paris in 1929 where she met Man Ray. He encouraged her straight away to pursue her own photographic ideals. Magazine publications of her works in ‘Für die Frau’ and ‘Frankfurter Zeitung’ met with considerable success. She returned to Berlin in 1930 to start work with Elsbeth Hedenhausen at the Ullstein photographic studio. In 1931 she embarked on a two–month tour of Palestine; in 1932 she left the Ullstein studio to return to Paris.
Her works were regularly published in magazines such as ‘Das Magazin’, ‘Wochenschau’, ‘Weltspiegel’ and ‘die neue linie’. In 1933 the Academia agency sent her on a photographic assignment to Spain in the company of the Swiss author Annemarie Schwarzenbach. Following the Nazi coup, Breslauer did not return to Germany but travelled to Zürich instead where she obtained work with the ‘Zürcher Illustrierte’ through Arnold Kübler, its editor-in-chief. Her photo series about the satirical revues at the ‘Pfeffermühle’ originated in this context.
Family matters prompted her return to Berlin in ca. 1934, where she initially worked for the Ullstein magazines ‘Uhu’ and ‘Die Dame’; she also published under the pseudonym ‘Ipp’ for the Kind photographic agency, and for Deutscher Kunstverlag; ‘Funkstunde’ and ‘Gebrauchsgraphik’ also published Breslauer’s photographs.
In 1936, having married art dealer Walter Feilchenfeldt, Marianne Breslauer decided to leave Germany and to immigrate to the Netherlands. In 1938 she gave up her activity as a professional photographer, embarking on new ventures instead.

© Kathrin Beer, 2009



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