Em­­press Elis­a­­beth of Aus­­tria-Hun­­gary, called Sisi, col­lec­t­ed pho­­to­­graphs in the 1860s, but kept them pri­­vate through­out her life. To­­day the Mu­se­um Lud­wig holds eigh­­teen of her al­bums with some 2000 pho­­to­­graphs. The most renowned are from her “al­bums of beau­ties,” high­­­ly staged por­­traits of other wo­m­en. The pre­sen­­ta­­tion out­­­lines the con­nec­­tions be­tween her al­­most ob­s­es­­sive col­lec­t­ing of por­­traits of wo­m­en and the im­age of her­­self that she cre­at­ed.

For more than fif­ty years, Be­tye Saar has cre­at­ed as­sem­blages from a wide va­ri­e­ty of found ob­jects, which she com­bines with draw­ing, prints, paint­ing, and pho­tog­ra­phy.

The Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst am Mu­se­um Lud­wig purchased the as­sem­blage The Di­vine Face from 1971 to­gether with the Mu­se­um Lud­wig for the mu­se­um’s col­lec­tion as part of the prize award­ed to Be­tye Saar. The work will be pre­sent­ed in the mu­se­um’s col­lec­tion along with two etch­in­gs re­cent­ly ac­quired through the “Per­len­such­er am Mu­se­um Lud­wig” ini­tia­tive as well as a col­lage, an artist’s book and the film Be­tye Saar: Tak­ing Care of Busi­ness.