Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation receives the estate of Leni Riefenstahl
Press release from 02/12/2018
Heiress donates extensive photographic and film holdings, manuscripts, letters, files and documents - Art Library and State Library will process the estate - Cooperation with the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek planned - Parzinger: "This estate demands special responsibility from the SPK
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has received a generous donation of the complete estate of Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003), one of the most important but also most controversial artists in the history of German film and photography. She enjoyed great success as a dancer, actress, filmmaker (producer, director, screenwriter, editor) and photographer. During her lifetime, she was admired and appreciated for her films and photographs as a creative and innovative image inventor, but was sharply criticised in the post-war period for using her artistic skills in the service of National Socialist propaganda. The estate contains extensive photographic and film material, manuscripts, letters, diaries, files and documents as well as press cuttings and books.
After the death of Leni Riefenstahl's husband Horst Kettner in December 2016, Leni Riefenstahl's former secretary, Gisela Jahn, became the sole heir. She decided to donate the artist's entire estate to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The archive holdings date back to the 1920s and appear to be extremely complete, especially for the post-war period. With the takeover from Leni Riefenstahl's house in Pöcking on Lake Starnberg and the conclusion of the donation contract, an intensive phase of cataloguing will now take place over the next few months. An interdisciplinary research and archive team is to be put together to catalogue and catalogue the estate, financed by third-party funds yet to be raised. In the area of film, a cooperation with the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek is being sought.
"With Leni Riefenstahl's estate, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has not only taken on a groundbreaking aesthetic work, but also a special responsibility for the critical examination of this controversial figure of contemporary history. Leni Riefenstahl's role in National Socialism in particular will be of central importance when analysing the estate," says Hermann Parzinger, President of the Foundation.
It was the wish of the heiress Gisela Jahn to have the estate preserved in Berlin, Leni Riefenstahl's birthplace. With its museums, libraries, archives and research institutes, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation offers excellent conditions for the preservation of this complex legacy.
The photographic collection is to be housed in the Museum of Photography at Bahnhof Zoo, under the care of the Art Library's Photography Collection. Helmut Newton's work, with whom Leni Riefenstahl was a close friend in her later years, has also been on display here since 2004. This is documented in the permanent exhibition "Private Property" with letters and books by Leni Riefenstahl - conversely, Newton's letters can be found in her archive. In recent years, the Museum of Photography has developed into a lively place for analysing the past and present of photography. Over 30 exhibitions have focussed on the role of photography in art, the press, science and history. The 150-year-old collection has been considerably expanded since 2004 with the addition of the Willy Römer press photo archive and other estates of important photographers.
The Leni Riefenstahl Archive's collection of writings, including correspondence, diaries and manuscripts, is to be managed by the manuscript department of the Berlin State Library, where today over 1000 estates from five centuries of personalities from all areas of intellectual, cultural and scientific life are stored and catalogued.
Gisela Jahn has transferred the commercial exploitation rights to Holger Roost-Macías' company La Tresor Kreativhandel GmbH, while the bpk picture agency of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is responsible for the digital utilisation of individual images.