Sarah Schumann (born Maria Schirmer; August 13, 1933 – July 3, 2019 in Berlin) was a German painter, collagist and draughtswoman. She was heavily involved in the German feminist movement throughout her career, forming the feminist group Brot + Rosen (Bread + Roses) in 1972 and co-curating of Künstlerinnen International 1877–1977, the first exhibition of twentieth-century women's art in Germany.
Biography Schumann was born as Maria Schirmer to sculptors Dora and Kilian Schirmer in Berlin. As a war refugee of World War II, she grew up in poverty and was malnourished, which led to health problems in her adulthood. She was self-taught in art out of necessity, as her parents could not afford to pay tuition for an art academy, but they nurtured her talent in their studio. Her mother's remarriage to a Nazi Party paramilitary Mann led Schumann to leave home at 15, beginning an apprenticeship in Hamburg. She met gallerist Hans Brockstedt, who took her on his travels to introduce her to the wider arts scene, and she later married him at 18.
During the 1950s, she traveled through Europe with her then-husband Hans Brockstedt, visiting museums and collections, where she exhibited art under the name Maria Brockstedt. After separating from her husband, she lived in London from 1960 to 1963, where she became intimately familiar with the London art scene, and adopted the name Sarah Schumann. In London, she exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) where she sold work successfully; in 1963, due to the cost of living, she moved to the Villa Engadina in Piedmont, Italy.
Schumann lived in Charlottenburg, Berlin with her partner Silvia Bovenschen until Bovenschen's death in 2019.
Reception and re-discovery
Much of her early work was considered lost. However many pieces were stored in the attic of her former husband, Hans Brockstedt. After a presentation at the Hamburger Kunstverein in 1983, they were moved back into storage. Curator Christoph Keller discovered in Brockstedt's estate; around 60 collages and 15 paintings. They were brought together for a quasi-museum exhibition at the Meyer Riegger Gallery in Berlin, where the works were not for sale. At the same time, Schumann's early informal paintings were presented in 2025 in the exhibition "InformELLE - Women Artists of the 1950s/60s" at the Emil Schumacher Museum Hagen.
Works in public collections
Germany
Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Berlin Berlinische Galerie, Berlin Morsbroich Museum, Leverkusen Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg New Berlin Art Association (nbk), Berlin
International
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, US
Awards
1977/78: Scholarship for the German Academy, Villa Massimo, Rome 1981: Working grant from the Senator for Cultural Affairs, Berlin 1986: Scholarship for the Bleckede artists' colony, Lower Saxony 1987: Working grant from the Senator for Cultural Affairs, Berlin 1990: Working grant from the Art Fund, Bonn
Publications (selected)
Book publications
Sarah Schumann. With contributions by Silvia Bovenschen. Frölich und Kaufmann, Berlin 1983, . Moscow. Ore and Body. Dvorah-Verlag, Berlin 1995, . Kathrin Mosler (Ed.): Sarah Schumann: Works 1958–2002. Nicolai, Berlin 2003, . Christoph Keller (Ed.): Sarah Schumann. Shock Collages 1957–1964. Spector Books, Leipzig 2025, .
Illustrations
Cover design for the collected works edition – Collected Works of Virginia Woolf published by S. Fischer Verlag Design of cover motifs for publications, including the complete works of Virginia Woolf published by S. Fischer Verlag, books by Silvia Bovenschen and Alexander Garcia Düttmann. Illustrations for an edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, 1974 Covers and posters for magazines such as Freedom, Courage and Frauen im Film
Filmography
1978: Harun Farocki: A Picture of Sarah Schumann 2000: Renate Sami: Sarah Schumann paints a picture 2012: Michaela Melián: Silvia Bovenschen and Sarah Schumann 2015: Lone Thau: From Darkness to Light 2019: Bettina Böttinger: Sarah Schumann in conversation with Bettina Böttinger, produced by VAN HAM Art Estate
External links
VAN HAM Art Estate, official website of the artist Sarah Schumann VAN HAM, artist database of Sarah Schumann Artfacts, Sarah Schumann
References