The Life and Art of Lili Elbe
Lili Elbe was a Danish painter who specialized in landscape paintings. During her career, she exhibited at the Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling at the Vejle Art Museum in Denmark, as well as the Saloon and Salon d'Automne in Paris. Her notable works include Portrait de femme (1923), Parti Fra Capri (1921), View from the Garden of Versailles (1922), Costal View from France (1918), and Trianon (1920). Elbe was also a model for her wife, Gerda Wegener-Gottlieb, appearing as the subject for depictions of petites femmes fatales. Following her transition, she stopped painting.
A Remarkable Journey
Born in Vejle, Denmark, Elbe met Gerda Gottlieb while they were students at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. They married in 1904. After traveling through Italy and France, they settled in Paris in 1912. In 1930, Elbe underwent sex reassignment surgery in Germany, involving a series of operations performed by doctors Erwin Gohrbandt and Kurt Warnekros. In 1931, she underwent a fourth surgery to transplant a uterus. Due to complications from organ rejection and infection, she died in Dresden, Germany, on 13 September 1931.
