Uschi Obermaier 1970 / 2007

Uschi Obermaier

It is rare that a single image should become the concentrate of a whole era. This enigmatic and erotic portrait of a woman from the times of Woodstock, member of the famous Berlin “Kommune 1”, girlfriend of Rockstars like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix is one of these outstanding photographs. An icon of its time, it stands for free love and the hope for a life outside of bourgeois conventions. Posing for “Playboy” and, among others, for Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton helped her to become one of the best known German women internationally. To date we don’t know who  the photographer was, and maybe that is typical for the times from which the image stems – late sixties or early seventies. Very early on she lived what feminist writes only dared to think in a natural way: beauty, sensuality and elegance, combined with pride, freedom and self-determined sexuality. In the meantime Uschi Obermaier has become sixty years old and lives and works as a designer of jewelry in the outskirts of Los Angeles. The main character of a German film about her wild life, released in February 2007, she is happier than she ever dreamed to be at her age – as she stated in an interview with German magazine “Stern”. Uschi Obermaier – the Mata Hari of our times?