Ricarda Schwerin

Ricarda Schwerin, née Melzer, was born in Göttingen on 30 January 1912. She began studying at the Bauhaus Dessau in 1930: first in the advertisting workshop, then in the department of architecture and interior design. In 1931 she switched to Walter Peterhans’s photography class. She met the architect Heinz Schwerin in 1932. Both of them were active in the Communist Student Faction “Kostufra”. They were expelled from the Bauhaus because of a protest aimed at director Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and moved to Frankfurt. Ricarda Schwerin studied at a school of fine and applied art there. In 1933 the couple had to flee Germany due to their political activism: first to Switzerland and then to Hungary. They immigrated to Palestine in 1935. Then, in 1936, they founded the manufacturing company “Schwerin Wooden Toys” in Tel Aviv. Ricarda Schwerin photographed their products for catalogues and advertising materials. She lost her husband in the 1948 Palestine war. As a single mother of two children, she had to give up her company. She founded a private home for infant refugees. In 1955 Schwerin met the photographer Alfred Bernheim and began working as a professional photographer again. In their shared studio, they created numerous portraits of important public figures, including Golda Meir and Hannah Arendt. Following Bernheim’s death in 1974, Schwerin initially continued the studio on her own and then worked as a tour guide. Ricarda Schwerin died in Jerusalem on 29 July 1999.