LI OSBORNE

Li Osborne (née Luisa Friedericke Susanna Wolf) was born on 4th January 1883 in Mainz, Germany to a Bavarian mother and British father. After receiving an education in Freiburg, Geneva and London, Osborne had her first photographic exhibition in 1920, which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. She opened her own photographic studio two years later in Baden-Baden, where she specialised in portrait photography. In 1925, she became a member of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner (the Society of German Photographers) and relocated her studio to Giselstraße 1 in Munich where she photographed numerous notable celebrities, such as the playwright Berthold Brecht (1898-1956). In 1934, Osborne sold the studio and emigrated to Zurich (Switzerland) where she began teaching herself sculpture. Osborne would continue her exploration of the medium when she emigrated to England in 1945, and London’s Beaux Arts Gallery even held two shows of her sculpture in 1953 and 1956. Focussing on figural representation, some of the sitters for Osborne’s sculptural work included British artists, such as Mary Fedden (1915-2012), Patrick Heron (1920-1999), as well as Helen Lessore (1907-1994); the Director of the Beaux Arts Gallery. Li Osborne died on 19th August 1968 in Monte Brè, Switzerland.