A Decisive Look. Tensions Between Freedom and Female Emancipation in the <i>Idyll</i> Series by Grete Stern

Abstract

This paper analyzes some of the collages made by the Argentinian-­based German photographer Grete Stern (Wuppertal, 1904 - ­Buenos Aires, 1999) for the section “Psychoanalysis will help you” in Idilio magazine, published between 1948 and 1951. The photomontages reflect the crisis of the notion of “angel in the house”, which meant the retreat of women to the domestic sphere after World War II. I approach these works as expressions of the claim to freedom posed by the New Woman of the early twentieth ­century in Argentina. I have selected a group of photomontages that express, in my opinion, the tension caused by the patriarchal reaction against modern women’s desire for freedom and self­development. Critical readings of the Idilio series have focused, for the most part, on the changes in the family structure, on the aesthetic debate and its impact on the mass media, and even on the influence of psychoanalytical theories on Stern’s photomontages. However, I base my reading on the assumption that the photographer developed her own interpretation of those stories, posing her unique gaze on women’s position in society, in contrast to the psychoanalytic interpretation by Germani­ Butelman who, against Stern’s work, tried to moderate women’s liberties in favor of a declining domesticity.