Vera Isler-Leiner

Vera Isler-Leiner (born 1931) is a German artist working primarily in photography.
Biography
Vera Isler-Leiner was born as Vera Sulamith Leiner in Berlin, daughter of a Polish father, Heinz Leiner, and a Hungarian mother, Louise Leiner-Reichmann. Isler-Leiner was sent with her sisters to Switzerland in 1936 to escape the Nazis. Her parents did not escape and perished in Belzec extermination camp in 1942. She went to school in Teufen and Trogen, in the canton of Appenzell. In 1950, Isler-Leiner trained as a medical technician at the University Hospital in Berne, but at the same time began a career as an artist.
Vera Isler-Leiner is married to Manuel Isler, a journalist and former professor of journalism in Basel. In 1998, after falling ill from breast cancer, she had a mastectomy. Isler-Leiner lives and works in Bottmingen near Basel, and in Nice and New York.
Artistic work
In 1950, Isler-Leiner began acting in films and television, in addition to her work in visual art. From 1963 onwards, she concentrated on art and participated in solo and group exhibitions. Beginning with a six-months' stay in the United States in 1980 she has concentrated on photography. Isler-Leiner's work mainly focuses on the human face. Since 1981, her work has centred on the concept and publication of reports and books of photographs in the fields of architecture and art. Her interest in social investigation is recognizable in all her projects such as the plastic-based work Chromos-omen (her reflections on genetics), her artists photo-portraits Kunst-Täter and her videos and video-stills such as IRAQ and 42nd Street.
Isler-Leiner's work has been curated and supported since 2007 by Artforum Culture Foundation in Thessaloniki, Greece.

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