Focus! Click! Maria Austria - Photographer in Exile

The photographer Maria Austria, actually Marie Östreicher, was born in Karlovy Vary in 1915 and came to Vienna in the mid-1930s to study at the Higher Federal Institution for Graphic Education and Research. Following the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, she went underground and helped the resistance by making passport photos for counterfeit passports. As a press photographer, she documented the issues of her time, from the destruction caused by war to street photography and portraits of artists and celebrities. Her series Het Achterhuis from 1954, with photos of Anne Frank’s hiding place, still has a direct impact today.

Now the first solo exhibition of this outstanding exponent of post-war photography, who remains largely unknown in this country, is being shown in Austria. Starting from the early works from her years in Vienna, this represents the highlights of her photographic activity from the 1930s to the mid-1970s.

In case you need high-resolution press images please send a request to presse@jmw.at.