06/04/2026
Lene Schneider-Kainer (1885–1971) was an Austrian-born artist whose life and work spanned continents, cultures, and some of the most turbulent events of the twentieth century. Born in Vienna, she studied art in Vienna, Munich, Amsterdam, and Berlin before making her solo debut in 1917 with an exhibition at Berlin’s Galerie Gurlitt. Throughout the 1920s, Schneider-Kainer earned recognition as a painter, illustrator, and fashion designer, establishing herself as a prominent creative voice of her era.
Following her divorce from her husband Ludwig in 1926, Schneider-Kainer embarked on an extraordinary new chapter. Commissioned by the Berliner Tageblatt newspaper, she set out to retrace the route of Marco Polo across the Middle East and Asia, combining artistic observation with travel journalism.
Between 1926 and 1928, Schneider-Kainer and the poet Bernhard Kellermann journeyed through Iran, Ladakh (Klein-Tibet), India, Thailand, Vietnam, and China. Along the way, she sketched, photographed, and recorded her impressions and experiences, sharing them with readers through regular contributions to the Berliner Tageblatt. While most of her photographs have sadly been lost, her drawings and written accounts remain a remarkable record of these travels.
Schneider-Kainer settled in Mallorca in 1932 and later moved to Ibiza. With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she fled to New York, where she worked as a children’s book illustrator. In 1954, she relocated once more, this time to Cochabamba, Bolivia, where she helped her son establish a textile factory. Living under the name Elena Eleska, she remained in Bolivia for the rest of her life and died there in 1971.
The Leo Baeck Institute Art Collection has several hundred drawings, sketches, and watercolors by Lene Schneider-Kainer, many of which were done during her extensive travels. The Leo Baeck Institute Archives has a digitized collection of photographs, biographical notes, and a scrapbook album with newspaper clippings about Schneider-Kainer's travels and exhibition programs for her art. The LBI Archives also has a typewritten memoir of Schneider-Kainer's trip Marco Polo inspired trip 1926-1928; this memoir was also translated into English.
