The Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery presents "Albert Einstein Photographed by Lotte Jacobi", on view through September 30 in the Library Rotunda, an exhibition marking the 50th anniversary of Einstein’s death, selected from the Library’s Photography Collections in Special Collections.

Almost 100 years ago, Albert Einstein wrote the two papers on relativity that secured his place among humanity’s greatest thinkers. His discovery of relativity in 1905 dramatically changed the centuries-old conception of time and space. In 2005, as the world marks the 50th anniversary of Einstein’s death, the impact of his “miracle year” is still being felt.

Lotte Jacobi first met Einstein in 1927 when she photographed him at Gatow, Germany, where he and his wife Elsa were spending the summer by the river. Previously, Einstein had been photographed several times at the fashionable Jacobi Studio in Berlin by Lotte’s father and sister. Jacobi Studio was much more than a photography business—it was a meeting place for the luminaries of Berlin. Among the people that Lotte Jacobi photographed in addition to Einstein were Emil Jannings, László Moholy Nagy, Käthe Kollwitz, Lion Feuchtwangler, Max Lieberman, and Max Planck.

Einstein was one of the most frequently photographed people of his era. In fact, his name and face were so well known that he typically traveled to lectures by train in coach class to avoid attracting attention. In 1935, while on vacation in Connecticut, a man stopped him on the street because Einstein’s face looked familiar. Einstein replied: “I’m a photographer’s model.” Jacobi photographed Einstein on five separate occasions in Germany and the U.S., and the two became good acquaintances. For example, Life magazine asked Jacobi to photograph Einstein in 1938, so she visited him at his Princeton, New Jersey, home. Later that year The New York Times wanted photographs of Einstein and Thomas Mann together (Mann was also living in Princeton), and Jacobi returned to Princeton. Jacobi visited Einstein twice in the 1950s before he died, but these visits were not for photographs, just friendship.

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