Autorretrato con Ursula (Self-Portrait with Ursula) 1938

This is Annemarie Heinrich’s self-portrait with Ursula, made with black and white film, sometime in the 20th century. Heinrich was a German-born Argentinian photographer known for her portraits of celebrities and her avant-garde photography. In this image, Heinrich uses a reflective sphere to create a distorted, dreamlike self-portrait. Her hands hover around the sphere, creating a frame within a frame, while her face and that of her daughter Ursula are visible in the reflection. The use of the sphere distorts and fragments their images, challenging traditional notions of representation and identity. What does it mean to see oneself reflected, but not whole? How does it change our understanding of who we are, and how others see us? Heinrich, who fled Nazi Germany for Argentina, became a central figure in the Buenos Aires art scene. Her personal history shapes this intimate and experimental work, which plays with perception, identity, and the complex relationship between mother and daughter.