Swiss painter and sculptor of German birth. She studied in Basle at the
Kunstgewerbeschule from 1929 to 1930. After seeing an exhibition of
Bauhaus work, including that of Paul Klee, at the Basle Kunsthalle,
Oppenheim produced her first Surrealist work, a series of pen-and-ink
drawings in a school notebook. Oppenheim’s earliest works reflect the
influence of Klee and the artists of Neue Sachlichkeit. She moved to Paris
in 1932 and studied briefly at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière before
meeting the Surrealists through Alberto Giacometti and Hans Arp the
following year. Oppenheim quickly became known as the perfect embodiment
of the Surrealist woman, the femme-enfant, who through her youth,
naivety and charm was believed to have more direct and spontaneous access
to the realms of the dream and the unconscious. She was celebrated by the
Surrealists as the ‘fairy woman whom all men desire’. Man Ray posed her
nude with an etching press in a celebrated series of photographs that
includes Erotique voilée (1933). She first exhibited with the
Surrealists in the Salon des Surindépendants in 1933, then participated in
Surrealist meetings and exhibitions until 1937 and again, more
sporadically, after World War II. Her participation ended shortly before
André Breton’s death in 1966.
