Dr Rosa Schapire
- Artist: Karl Schmidt-Rottluff
- Date: 1919
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1006 x 873 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is the “Dr Rosa Schapire” by Karl Schmidt‑Rottluff, painted in 1919. It’s an oil on canvas portrait of the art historian and early supporter of the Brücke group. The sitter, Rosa Schapire, studied at Zurich and Heidelberg and was a close friend of Schmidt‑Rottluff from 1908, even publishing a catalogue of his work in 1924. The painting was created over the summer at Hohwacht on the Baltic coast and later given to her as a Christmas gift by the artist and his wife.
Schmidt‑Rottluff incorporated this portrait, along with a piece titled “Woman with a Bag,” into a decorative scheme for Schapire’s living‑room in Hamburg. The ensemble included furniture, textiles, and carved works, many of which were brought to England when she fled Nazi persecution in 1939. Today the portrait sits in the collection, a testament to a friendship that bridged art, history, and the turbulent events of the early twentieth century.
See it in person
Dr Rosa Schapire is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
