Chien Fou: Selected Writings

The career of avant-garde photographer and activist Germaine Krull (1897–1985) took her across the world over a turbulent century. After growing up around Europe, Krull studied photography in Munich during the First World War. There she acquired her nickname or alter-ego ‘Chien fou’ (Mad Dog), which provides the chronological and thematic starting point for this volume of writings drawn from the course of Krull’s extraordinary life, most published for the first time. 

The selected texts range from artistic manifestos to political essays to memoirs, written between the 1920s and ’80s in a wide variety of places and circumstances. They narrate Krull’s life among the creative communities of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and interwar Paris, her participation in the French Resistance in Brazil and Equatorial Africa, and her later decision to settle in Thailand, then India. Illustrated throughout with Krull's celebrated photographs and archival materials, this collection offers a compelling account from the front lines of artistic innovation in the twentieth century and introduces a unique literary stylist.

Edited by Kerstin Meincke and Petra Steinhardt

Co-published with Museum Folkwang, Essen, to coincide with a major exhibition open 28 November 2025 to 15 March 2026

Published in English, German, and French language editions