Lot 304

Lorenza Böttner, Untitled (Dancing Self Portrait). 1982.

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Lorenza Böttner, Untitled (Dancing Self Portrait). 1982.

Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500

Current Bid: $1,100

(5 Bids)

by Swann Auction Galleries
August 13, 2026 10:30 AM EDT
Live Auction
104 East 25th Street
New York, NY, US 10010

Lorenza Böttner
1959-1994
Untitled (Dancing Self Portrait). 1982.
Colored pencil on notepad paper.
Signed and dated, lower right.

  • Provenance:
    Gift directly from the artist.
    Private collection, Kassel, Germany.

    Notes:
    Lorenza Böttner was a multi-media artist that focused on transformation, evolving her painting practice into a performance art that took to the streets and made public space a stage for a politicized bodily difference. Originally named Ernst Lorenz Böttner, she was born into a family of German origin in Punta Arenas, Chile. At the age of eight, she was electrocuted when climbing up a pylon, resulting in both arms having to be amputated below the shoulder. She returned to Germany with her mother in 1973 to undertake a series of plastic surgery operations and moved to Lichtenau, a city near Kassel. Böttner grew up being considered "disabled" and suffered the same internment and exclusion as the so-called contergan children, who were born with morphological differences from in-uterus effects of the drug thalidomide.

    Böttner, however, resisted and refused prosthetic arms. She chose to transform her situation, developing an impassioned interest for classical ballet, jazz, and tap dancing, and learning to paint with her feet and mouth. She studied painting at the Kassel school of art and design, graduating with a thesis entitled "Behindert?" in which she questioned the category of disability and explored the genealogy of mouth-and-foot painters. In Kassel Lorenz decided to use the name Lorenza, affirming an openly transgender feminine position.

    She actively opposed the processes of desubjectification, incapacitation, desexualization, and castration that modern normalizing societies reserve for the bodily other. In 1988, Lorenza moved to Barcelona and in 1994 passed from HIV/AIDS related complications.
  • Dimensions: 12 7/8 x 9 1/2 in. (32.6 x 24 cm.)
  • Medium: Colored pencil on notepad paper.
  • Condition: Please contact the Specialist for the auction to request a condition report.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $149 $10
$150 $499 $25
$500 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $5,999 $200
$6,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,000
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 $499,999 $20,000
$500,000 + $50,000