An Oversize Signed Photograph, 11×13 Inches, of Albert Einstein by Noted Photographer Herman Landshoff, Inscribed and Signed to Psychoanalyst Robert Akeret

Obtained from the Akeret descendants, it has never before been offered for sale

Herman Landshoff started working as a photographer in Germany in 1930. He emigrated to Paris in July 1933 after Hitler came to power. In 1935 he received his first commissions as a fashion photographer for the French fashion magazine Vogue. In 1941 Landshoff emigrated to the United States. Soon he was able once again to pursue his work as a fashion photographer and to work for major fashion magazines in New York. He also made portraits of many Europeans in exile in the New York area, thereby documenting the art scene of the time. The three main aspects of Landshoff’s work were fashion photography, architectural photography and portraits. In New York, he was part of a circle of artists who had fled their countries for political reasons and who had gathered under the auspices of Peggy Guggenheim. He photographed his Surrealist friends Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondrian, André Breton, Fernand Léger, Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington in Guggenheim’s house with her artwork collection as a background. He also photographed artists like Alexander Calder and Eva Hesse in their studios as they interacted with their own work. Over the years he took some 70 portraits of his fellow photographers, including Arnold Newman, Robert Frank, Berenice Abbott, and Edward Steichen. Landshoff was highly respected by his peers, with his work prompting the American photographer Richard Avedon to claim “I owe everything to Landshoff.”

From 1946-1950, Landshoff visited Albert Einstein at his home in Princeton, New Jersey numerous times to take his photograph. Twelve portraits of Einstein and one photograph of the exterior of his house resulted from these visits, and these came to comprise the folio published in 1980 under the title “Albert Einstein at Home, Princeton, 1946-1950.” So the names Einstein and Landshoff are connected.

Robert and Ann Akeret were friends of Landshoff. Robert received a doctorate from Columbia University and his certificate in psychoanalysis from the William Alanson White Institute, where he trained with Rollo May and Erich Fromm. He served as a President of the Association of Psychoanalytic Psychologists. He wrote five books: Not by Words Alone, Photoanalysis, Family Tales, Family Wisdom, Tales from a Traveling Couch, and Photolanguage. He also appeared on national talk shows, including The Tonight Show, to promote his books.

This is one of the twelve Landshoff photographs of Einstein, signed by Einstein at Landshoff’s request and presented to his friends. It is an oversize photograph, 11 by 13 inches, inscribed and signed “A. Einstein, [19]50, for Robert and Ann Akeret.” We obtained this from the Akeret descendants, and it has never before been offered for sale. Affixed to a light board.