Vordemberge-Gildewart

The guestbooks of Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart and his wife identify the "network within which the young artist moved and would continue to move throughout his life: Theo van Doesburg, Herwarth Walden, Kurt Schwitters, Käthe Steinitz ... All in all, five guestbooks ... the first, which encompasses the years in Hanover from 1925 to 1929, followed by the second covering their stations in Hanover, Berlin and Amsterdam from 1929 to 1951, two other spanning the years in Amsterdam and Ulm from 1951 to 1955 and in Ulm from 1955 to 1961, and the final book containing only a few entries ... [and] ends in 1962, the year of Vordemberge-Gildewart's death." Vordemberge-Gildewart's wife, Ilse Leda, was of Jewish descent. In 1936, after the Nazi government forced her to close her Berlin dance school, she founded the Erste Jüdische Tanzgruppe (First Jewish Dance Ensemble) under the auspices of the Jüdischer Kulturbund. A flyer for the Tanzgruppe is reproduced on page 85. At the end of 1938 she became the secretary for the Jüdischer Flüchtlingskomitee in Amsterdam; in 1941 she lost her German citizenship. For further biographical details see page 173.