Ms Ey
When photographer Hugo Erfurth shot a portrait of Johanna Ey in Düsseldorf in 1930, she was 66 years old – and the “most-painted woman in Germany”.
The picture shows Johanna Ey leaning slightly to the side and looking at the camera through round, simple glasses. Her plump face is resting on her left hand, a light smile playing across her lips. Her short hair is as dark as her attire, which is held together across her collar with a brooch. Her full upper body takes up half of the image. Hugo Erfurth is famous for his personal, psychologising portraits that visualise the model’s respective character. He viewed photography as a means of artistic expression, and turned his shots into premium, oil pigment prints. This gives Johanna Ey a softness that even a viewer with no context can pick up on. A hug with Johanna Ey must have been a rather comforting experience – with coffee and cake as well, of course.
“New Art. Ms Ey”
Johanna Ey did indeed serve coffee and cake. The “crazies” and “misfits” of the art scene were regulars at her coffee shop in Düsseldorf. Young artists who were often penniless could have orders placed on their tab, or pay her in art. Word quickly got around, and it didn’t take long for the coffee shop to turn into a café gallery named “New Art. Ms Ey”. First at Ratinger Straße and later at Hindenburgwall (now Heinrich-Heine-Allee), she would exhibit pictures from the “Young Rhineland”, an art collective formed around graphic artist Otto Pankok in 1919.
Contested art – “degenerate art”
The “Young Rhineland’s” works were grotesque and sought to provoke. The unadulterated horror of the First World War jumped out from the canvas at the viewer. Nobody bought pictures like theirs in the 1920s. Johanna Ey earned her keep with conventional paintings by academy professors. Rage at the fact that these paintings were increasingly being displayed next to those by the young artists was not uncommon. Crowds and long lines regularly formed outside her shop, and her windows were even bashed in. Johanna Ey – long referred to as “Mother Ey” against her will – felt most at home in the middle of the tumult. Then Düsseldorf’s burgeoning art scene met an abrupt end.
The economic crisis ruined Ey financially, the “Ey collection” was branded “degenerate art” by the National Socialist regime, and the works were confiscated and either sold abroad or destroyed. She had to vacate her gallery and flat in 1933. By this time, many members of the “Young Rhineland” had already fled into exile to escape persecution and death. Johanna Ey, too, ultimately had to leave Düsseldorf.
Her portrait now adorns the gable of a building at the end of the street that bears her name. She looks down on the crowds below with the same tranquil expression that Hugo Erfurth so artfully captured. Johanna Ey died on 27 August 1947.
“To the great Ey, we praise you. Ey, we commend your strengths. The Rhineland bows to you and purchases your works happily and fairly …” (Max Ernst, 1929)