Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (sometimes also called Else von Freytag-von Loringhoven) (July 12, 1874 – December 15, 1927) was a German-born avant-garde, Dadaist artist and poet who spent most of her life in Greenwich Village, New York City, United States.
Freytag-Loringhoven was born Elsa Hildegard Plötz in Swinemünde (Świnoujście), German Empire, to Adolf Plötz, of German descent, and Ida Kleist, of Polish descent. Her father, a mason, ...
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Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (sometimes also called Else von Freytag-von Loringhoven) (July 12, 1874 – December 15, 1927) was a German-born avant-garde, Dadaist artist and poet who spent most of her life in Greenwich Village, New York City, United States.
Freytag-Loringhoven was born Elsa Hildegard Plötz in Swinemünde (Świnoujście), German Empire, to Adolf Plötz, of German descent, and Ida Kleist, of Polish descent. Her father, a mason, sexually and physically abused her in her childhood. She practiced prostitution, and had numerous affairs with both men and women throughout her lifetime, including the writer Djuna Barnes.
For a while she was an art student in Dachau, near Munich, before marrying in 1901 a Berlin-based architect, August Endell, at which time she became Else Endell. In 1902 she became (with her husband's knowledge) involved in an affair with a friend of Endell's, the minor poet and translator Felix Paul Greve (later the Canadian author Frederick Philip Grove),...
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