Annegret Soltau (b. 1946, Lüneburg, Germany; lives and works in Darmstadt)

Annegret Soltau is a pioneering figure of the German feminist avant-garde whose œuvre encompasses multiple media and extends across more than five decades. Beginning with early drawings and etchings, her practice soon expanded into experimental photography, performative video works, and installations. Central to Soltau’s practice are recurring themes of feminism, body politics, and the destabilization of female identity. She pioneered techniques such as “photo-sewing,” “photo-restitching,” and photo-etching, which extend the boundaries of traditional photography through tactile interventions. Her self-portraits disrupt conventional feminine representations — fragmenting and reassembling the image of the body through thread and needle to visualize emotional complexity, inner conflict, and societal constraints.

From the late 1970s onward, Soltau’s work has critically engaged with pregnancy and motherhood — subjects historically underrepresented in visual art — while probing the embodied experience of aging and questions of mortality. Frequently met with censorship in Germany, Soltau’s visual language remains radical and confrontational; the recent retrospective at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, helped to correct this fraught reception history and reposition Soltau with the stature she deserves.

Select solo exhibitions include Städel Museum, Frankfurt (2025); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2019); Kunsthalle der Sparkassenstiftung, Lüneburg (2016); Frauen Museum, Bonn (2014). Select group exhibitions include ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe (2015, 2017); The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2016); Mumok, Vienna (2016); Museum Tinguely, Basel (2016); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2018); MoMA PS1, New York (2008); MOCA, Los Angeles (2007); and National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. Her works are in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Kunsthalle Bremen; Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Sammlung VERBUND, Vienna; and THE VERO GROUP, Houston, among others.