Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Surf, Bodega 1937 19 x 24cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive
Three week’s to the day since my hip replacement operation and I’m still in pain. I know, slowly slowly but it’s very frustrating…
Thus, I just have two words for you about this exhibition –
GREAT WESTERN!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Fundación MAPFRE for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, It is within reach, Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know, Perhaps it is every where on water and land.”
Walt Whitman. Part of Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass. 1855
I never try to limit myself by theories, I do not question right or wrong approach when I am interested or amazed – impelled to work. I do not fear logic, I dare to be irrational, or really never consider whether I am or not. This keeps me fluid, open to fresh impulse, free from formulae; and precisely because I have no formulae – the public who know my work is often surprised, the critics, who all, or most of them, have their pet formulae are disturbed. And my friends distressed.
I would say to any artist – don’t be repressed in your work – dare to experiment – Consider any urge – if in a new direction all the better – as a gift from the Gods not to be lightly denied by convention or a priori concept. Our time is becoming more and more bound by logic, absolute rationalism; this is a straitjacket I – it is the boredom and narrowness which rises directly from mediocre mass thinking.
The great scientist dares to differ from accepted ‘facts’ -think irrationally – let the artist do likewise.
Edward Weston 28 January, 1932 from The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Vol. ll Horizon Press, New York 1966
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Guadalupe MarÃn de Rivera 1924 20.8 x 17.9cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Gift of Ansel and Virginia Adams
Strongly linked to the landscape and to North American cultural history, Edward Weston’s work, in its extreme simplicity and originality, allows us to appreciate a unique perspective on the process of consolidation of photography as an artistic medium and its relevant role in the context of modernity in the visual arts. The exhibition Edward Weston. La matèria de les formes (Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms) is conceived as an anthology that covers the different phases of the artist’s photographic production.
A pioneer in the use of a modern photographic style, his use of the large-format camera gives rise to richly detailed black and white images of extraordinary clarity. His technical expertise and his affection for nature and form led to the development of a body of work in which iconic images of still lifes, nudes, landscapes and portraits stand out. His images are essential for understanding the new aesthetic and new American lifestyle that emerged in the United States between the wars.
The exhibition, curated by Sergio Mah, consists of around two hundred photographs grouped into seven sections. The exhibition tour is completed with numerous documentary material and is conceived from a European perspective on the legacy of modern American photography. An aesthetic and conceptual counterpoint to the photographic modernism in Europe that emerged with the first avant-garde of the 20th century.
The emancipation of photography
Edward Weston was one of the pioneers, along with Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, in defending the emancipation of photography from other artistic disciplines. In this sense, his work contributed decisively to demonstrating, in this early period of photography, the aesthetic and perceptual dimension of the medium, the capacity to express aesthetic qualities in the same way as painting or sculpture.
Figuration and abstraction
The technical mastery of the photographic medium leads Weston to a formalism in which framing becomes one of the most relevant elements of his work. Weston eliminates any anecdotal aspect and focuses on the motif that interests him, and does so with such realism and exaltation of the two-dimensional nature of photography, which often results in an abstract image. In this way, the artist shows that figuration and abstraction do not exempt one from the other, but are perfectly compatible.
Exhibition organised with the support of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
Text from the Fundación MAPFRE website translated from the Spanish by Google Translate
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Two Shells 1927, print about 1933 24.1 x 18.4cm Gelatin silver print The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Pepper No. 30 1930 22.8 x 17.7cm Gelatin silver print Courtesy by Trockmorton Fine Art
Highlights
Fundación MAPFRE presents the exhibition Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms, dedicated to the five decades of the career of this North American artist, one of the most important figures in modern photography. In addition, through the work of the artist himself, the exhibition aims to offer a pedagogical reflection on the history of the medium and its relevance as an aesthetic and perceptive discipline, apart from the more traditional plastic arts; specifically, painting.
Key points
The emancipation of photography
Edward Weston was one of the pioneers, along with Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, in defending the emancipation of photography from other artistic disciplines. In this sense, his work is essential to understanding the aesthetic and perceptive capacity of the medium in its beginnings. This capacity allows photography to express aesthetic qualities such as beauty, pain or ugliness at the same level as painting or sculpture.
Figuration and abstraction
The technical mastery of the photographic medium leads Weston to a formalism where framing becomes one of the most relevant elements of his work. In this sense, he eliminates any anecdotal aspect and focuses on the motif that interests him, and he does so with such realism and with such exaltation of the two-dimensional character of photography that he ends up obtaining an abstract image as a result. In this way, the artist shows that figuration and abstraction do not exclude each other, but are perfectly compatible.
Pepper No. 30
Edward Weston took this photograph, one of the most representative of his entire career, at the beginning of August 1930. It was not the first time he had photographed a vegetable, nor a pepper. The artist himself spoke about this image: “It is a fully satisfactory classic: a pepper, but more than a pepper. It is abstract, in the sense that it exists completely outside the subject. It has no psychological attributes, it does not awaken human emotions: this new pepper takes us beyond the world we know in the conscious mind.” In the light of this photograph and the artist’s words, the innovative character of his work can be distinguished, which transcended not only modern American photography, but also European photography.
The exhibition
Weston’s work, strongly linked to the landscape and to North American cultural history, in its extreme simplicity and originality, reveals a unique perspective on the process of consolidation of photography as an artistic medium and its relevant role in the context of modernity in the visual arts. The exhibition Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms is conceived as an anthology that covers the different phases of the artist’s photographic production. From his initial interest in Pictorialist approaches to his consolidation as one of the central figures in the affirmation of the poetic and speculative value of direct photography. A pioneer in the use of a modern photographic style, his work is characterised by the use of a large-format camera, which allows him to offer richly detailed black and white images of extraordinary clarity. His mastery of technique, together with his love of nature and form, led him to develop a photographic production in which iconic images of still lifes, nudes, landscapes and portraits stand out. As a co-founder of the photography collective Group f/64, his images are key to understanding the new North American aesthetic and lifestyle that emerged in the United States between the wars.
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Prologue to a Sad Spring 1920 23.8 x 18.7cm Platinum print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Johan Hagemeyer Collection/Purchase
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Edward Weston began photography very early, thanks to a Kodak Bulls-Eye No. 2 camera that his father gave him when he was just sixteen. Although he was practically self-taught, in 1911 he opened his first photographic establishment in a suburb of Los Angeles. His early works reveal the influence of the Pictorialist atmosphere of the time: impressionistic views and pastoral subjects with soft or slightly blurred focus, scenography and expressive poses.
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Janitzio, Mexico 1926 20.4 x 25.2cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive/Gift of the Heirs of Edward Weston
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Weston’s dissatisfaction with this artistic approach to photography, which sought to assimilate itself to painting, coincided with the appearance of other photographers with similar ideas, such as Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, whom he met in New York in 1922. In 1923 he set sail for Mexico accompanied by one of his sons and the photographer Tina Modotti. There he found a true renaissance of the arts and culture, and he came into contact with artists such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Rafael Sala. He expanded his visual horizon and tackled new themes, photographing objects, figures and motifs far from their original context, turning them into suggestive and extraordinary elements. It was then that he realised that true photographic art is intuitive and immediate, that the elimination of everything that is accessory constitutes the essence of his creative talent.
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Excusado, Mexico October 1925 24.1 x 19.1cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Floating Nude 1939 19.3 x 24.2cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive
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From 1926, after leaving Mexico, Weston photographed several sets of nudes. In these nudes, the photographer’s gaze varies depending on the model. In some cases, the frame is wide and even shows the face, while in others the gaze is more segmented and focuses on parts of the body as a way of cutting out and accentuating the shapes within the frame. It must be recognized that eroticism is a quality present in some of these photographs. However, it is incorrect to conclude that this type of gaze prevails in most of the nudes he photographed. Above all, Weston observes the body as a formal reality. The beauty and sensuality that these bodies suggest is reflected in the play of lines, shadows and contours they offer.
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Clouds, Death Valley 1939 20.4 x 25.2cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive
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From the late 1920s and into the following decades, landscape became a central element in Weston’s work. The artist photographed in the desert near Palm Springs, California, as well as in New Mexico, Arizona, and other Californian areas near his home in Carmel. In these works, the horizon and the depth of the background become a structural part of his works: the panoramic shots highlight the sublime character of the landscape. It was also during this period that Weston began to be interested in meteorological phenomena such as rain, the configuration of clouds, and the aridity of the territory.
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Crescent Beach, North Coast 1939 24.3 x 19.2cm Silver print mounted on board The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
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Over the years, Weston’s work increasingly acquired a “dense and melancholic” patina, an aspect that is accentuated by the tones that the images acquire. This characteristic is particularly evident in the photographs he took in 1941 to illustrate Leaves of Grass, a project for which he traveled throughout much of the United States for nearly two years. The images he captured in cemeteries in Louisiana and Georgia stand out, as well as those of abandoned, destroyed and burned buildings where the interest in formal aspects predominates and in which a critical and disillusioned commentary on reality and American society can already be seen.
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Drift Stump, Crescent Beach 1937 20.3 x 25.2cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive
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In the vicinity of Point Lobos, California, was the log cabin built by his son Neil on Wildcat Hill, where Weston moved in 1938. In this area of ​​California, the artist found the wild nature that he had sought in distant places. His images from this period denote less compositional and formal rigidity and show the cycles of nature in the territory, the wild beauty, the trees, stones and rocky landscapes that seem to arise and remain in a time that is stopped. These images express a certain melancholy and solitude, while allowing the viewer to rediscover nature in all its splendour.
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Dunes, Death Valley 1938 20.4 x 25.1cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive
The publication of the catalogue, published in Spanish and Catalan by Fundación MAPFRE, also has a co-edition in Italian published by Dario Cimorelli Editore.
Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Nude 1936 23.4 x 19.1cm Gelatin silver print Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Gift of the Estate of A.Richard Diebold, Jr.
Author of a vast and diverse body of work spanning five and a half decades, Edward Weston (1886-1958) is one of the great figures in the history of modern photography, partly because his work allows us to reflect on the distinctive qualities of photography as a technical, aesthetic and perceptual category.
His first creative experiments reveal a momentary adherence to the pictorialist tendencies of the time, but he would later stand out as one of the protagonists of a new generation of American photographers who sought to refocus the artistic axis of photography based on its exceptional capacity to represent the most diverse subjects in the world with rigor, clarity and sobriety.
With their extreme simplicity and originality, the exceptional quality of Weston’s images also lies in the way in which he was able to rethink and articulate the extraordinary realistic and objective capacity of photography with its aesthetic, poetic and phenomenological potential, contributing to expanding the horizon of the subjective experience of the image. In this way, Weston enunciated the unique role of photography in the panorama of the visual arts of his time.
Weston was an immensely prolific photographer and his work brings together a whole series of photographic themes, types and genres: portraits, nudes, still lifes, natural and urban landscapes, object photography, architecture… This anthological exhibition aims to cover the entirety of Weston’s photographic career, which began at the beginning of the 20th century and was uninterrupted until the end of the 1940s. The selection of works aims to go well beyond the period in which Weston took most of the images that gave him wide critical and institutional recognition. The truth is that a more complete and heterogeneous approach to his work allows us to summon other layers of aesthetic appreciation, broadening the understanding of the depth and articulations that Weston developed in the various fields he explored. Furthermore, it offers the opportunity to point out the aspects and affinities (in the gaze, in the construction of the image or in its peculiar relationship with certain themes) present throughout his career, emphasizing the coherence of his imagery, as well as the nuances and moments of transition that occurred in it.
Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Dunes, Oceano 1936 24.1 x 18.9cm Silver print mounted on board The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
From an early age, Edward Weston showed an interest in developing a creative side of photography apart from his commercial work. His early experiments show the influence of painting and reveal his attention and attachment to the pictorialist atmosphere of the time. These photographs include impressionistic views, pastoral subjects with soft or slightly blurred focus, numerous staged portraits that explore expressive poses and combinations with shadows and graphic elements of the environment.
The two periods he spent in Mexico, between 1923 and 1924 and then between 1925 and 1926, were decisive in Edward Weston’s creative career. There he began to explore new themes and genres and his visual horizon expanded significantly. He covered a wide variety of subjects, types of places, figures and things, parts of things, appropriate objects, motifs taken from their original context and repositioned in another interpretative framework. At the same time, his visual style completely sheds any reminiscence of the Pictorialist phase. A photography of great technical, formal and compositional rigour was consolidated. Weston realised that he had the capacity to transform trivial things into suggestive and extraordinary. He was clear that the art of photography lies fundamentally in the moment of making the image, in the way in which the photographer contemplates the subject and makes decisions according to the variables inherent in the photographic device. For him, the process is instinctive. This way of seeing – intuitive, intense and immediate – which seeks to isolate the subject, eliminating the accessory, the unnecessary, anything that could divert or attenuate the intensity of the photographic vision, constitutes the essence of Weston’s creative talent.
From 1927, Weston began a series of still life photographs. In these images he fully reveals the principles and characteristics of his work: the desire to represent the timeless essence of a natural object and, correlatively, to emphasise the duplicative and perceptive capacities of the photographic medium.
The compositions are carefully conceived. In the space of the image, there is a calculated conformity between the dimension of the forms and the format of the image. Here it is important to reiterate the focus on detail as a defining aspect of Weston’s imagery, evident in these still lifes and also in other aspects of his work. Weston understands the vision of detail as a way of fragmenting, isolating and bringing our gaze closer to certain things, accentuating the two-dimensional character of the image, its closed and opaque nature, without depth or horizon, evident above all in still lifes with dark backgrounds, such as photographs of peppers, but also in the various images of plants, trees, rocks and stones that he has been making since the early 1930s.
Weston left Mexico in 1926. In the following years, he made several series of nudes. This is not a new subject. He had already made some important ones before, including one of Anita Brenner’s back and another of her son Neil, whose torso is cut out in an image that evokes ancient Greek statues. In the nudes, the photographer’s gaze varies depending on the model. In some cases, the framing is wide and even shows the face, while in others the gaze is more segmented and focuses on parts of the body as a way of cutting out and accentuating the shapes within the frame. We can recognise that eroticism is a quality present in some of these photographs. It is incorrect, however, to conclude that this gaze prevails in most of his nudes. Weston observes the body mainly as a formal reality. The beauty and sensuality that these bodies suggest are based above all on the play of lines, shadows and contours that they provide.
From the late 1920s, and with greater intensity in the following decades, the landscape genre occupies a central place in Weston’s photographic production. In 1927, the artist takes photos in the Californian desert near Palm Springs. In the following years, he travels through New Mexico, Arizona and other areas of California, such as Oceano, Death Valley, Yosemite, the Mojave Desert and Point Lobos, near his home in Carmel. In these various places, he captures wide views of inhospitable territories in which there are no signs of human presence or intervention. The horizon line and the breadth of the territory become structuring motifs in his work. The impetus for these images is a feeling of admiration for the epic and immeasurable nature of these natural landscapes. Beyond his choice of panoramic shots, the images reveal other aspects and elements of nature, such as meteorological phenomena, rain, cloud formations and variations in sunlight, often in conjunction with their visual effect on the arid land or the vegetation and unique morphology of these territories. It is a vision sensitive to the transformative nature of the landscape, subject to environmental and geological changes.
Gradually, and with greater intensity from the 1940s onwards, Edward Weston’s imagery became denser and more melancholic, not only in terms of the selection of subjects, but also in the tonalities of the images. This tendency is particularly evident in the photographs he takes for an edition of Leaves of Grass, the masterpiece of the poet Walt Whitman. He travels throughout the United States for two years. He revisits many of the recurring themes in his work, but the large number of images he takes of cemeteries in Louisiana and Georgia stand out. These are photographs in which his interest in formal aspects, texture and light predominates. All the subjects are seen as an integral part of a geography that is at once physical, social and mental. On the other hand, there are a lot of images of abandoned, destroyed and burnt buildings, of rubbish and things destined to disappear. We can identify that the themes of finitude and death contribute to an imagery increasingly characterised by loneliness, melancholy, and decadence. For the first time in his work, the images suggest a disillusioned and critical commentary on American reality, on the relationship between nature and culture, continuity and change, alienation and social tension.
In 1938, Weston moved with Charis Wilson to the wooden house built by his son Neil on Wildcat Hill, near Point Lobos, California. The artist spent long periods taking photos in this coastal region. He wandered through areas that he knew well. The images show a nature permeated with cycles, rhythms and forces, a macrocosm where Weston found the material to continue his work. At Point Lobos, Weston encountered a wild, dazzling and ineffable beauty that he had always sought in distant places. In the trees, forests, stones and rocky landscapes, the photographer found a vital energy that led perception towards a diffuse time, contrary to the linearity of history, alien to modernity. Nature then emerged as a theme and setting that allowed him to think and experience a renewed gaze (spontaneous, intuitive, aesthetic), a gaze that was both concrete and metaphysical that allowed him to rediscover nature.
Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate
Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) Charis, Lake Ediza 1937 19.1 x 24.1cm Silver print mounted on board The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
KBr Fundación MAPFRE Av. del Litoral, 30 08005 Barcelona Phone: +34 932 723 180
Curated by Catlin Langford with Christopher Sutherland and Jessie Norman (Metro Auto Photo)
Installation view of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025 Photo: Marcus Bunyan
Dream Maker
This is one of the most joyous photography exhibitions that I have seen in a very long time.
The exhibition “introduces us to Alan Adler (2932-2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world… For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne / Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station.”
Through the strip self-portraits Adler took while servicing and then testing the photobooths that he operated in Melbourne, Australia we become immersed in an archive of his world, the exhibition becoming a joyous ode to a man who devoted his life to photography (not in the traditional sense): in turns humorous and historical, a travelogue, his travelogue, through time and space.
We see Adler growing older and ageing; we see historic events such as the COVID pandemic with him wearing a mask; we see him travelling the world to picture other photobooths in situ; we see him goofing and performing for the camera; and we see the people he met along the way. I particularly like the photograph of Adler having his photo taken on the “Photo Ride: Take “5” with Chuckie” where he imitates the smile of his fellow traveller (see below)
The exhibition is also historical – there is a short section on the history of the photobooth – contemporary – there are contemporary works by Australian artists who use the photobooth as the basis for their art – and lost and found – where “lost” photobooth strips that Adler diligently collected in the hope of one day reuniting them with their owner are displayed.
There is an absolutely wonderful video by Christopher Sutherland titled Alan (extract below) which gives you good insight into the man. He seems part magician, keeping those old photobooths going, and part artist – Adler’s workshop reminding me so much of the basement of the American artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972, see photo below) where he used to keep all the treasures he scavenged from around New York that he used to make his magical boxes. Adler’s photobooths were his magical boxes kept going by his bits and pieces, booths of happiness and memories, tales of a life in portraits.
In this exhibition the spirit of this man shines through in gloriously irreverent black and white and colour self-portraits, and fun, adventurous photographs from overseas. One of the best pure photography exhibitions I have seen this year.
Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025 Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Gallery 2
Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025 Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits introduces us to Alan Adler (1932-2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world.
For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne / Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station. As part of his weekly service, he would take a strip of test shots, now forming an extraordinary visual archive of over a thousand self-portraits.
Adler’s story shows a fascinating dedication to repetitious image making and is supported by the artworks of Melbourne creatives who have passionately used his photobooths.
Marking 100 years of the photobooth, Auto-Photo is one of many worldwide events that celebrate the centenary and reflect on the significance of this analogue machine.
Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits features Adler’s extensive archive, alongside additional exhibits and works of art from the collections of Katherine Griffiths, Mark Holsworth, Kyle Archie Knight, Ruth O’Leary, Nicky Makin, Jesse Marlow, Brian Meacham, Metro Auto Photo, Patrick Pound and Joshua Smith.
Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits is a Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) exhibition, presented in partnership with RMIT Culture.
Text from the RMIT Gallery website
Gallery 3
A Selected Visual History (in vitrine)
Photobooth portraits with the same background (c. 1930-1950) (in vitrine)
Julie Mac Photobooth Portraits 1970s (in vitrine)
Mark S. Holsworthy Photo Booth – readymade in 3 minutes 1984-continuing (in vitrine)
Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025 Photos: Marcus Bunyan
Gallery 4
Joshua Smith Flinders Street Photobooth 2019
Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025 Photos: Marcus Bunyan
RMIT Gallery 344 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000
Opening hours: 11am – 5pm Tuesday to Friday 12pm – 4pm Saturday Closed on public and University holidays
Curators: Jeff L. Rosenheim, Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs. Virginia McBride, Research Associate in the Department of Photographs, provided assistance.
Unknown Maker Woman Wearing a Tignon c. 1850 Daguerreotype with applied colour Case (open): 3 1/8 × 7 1/4 in. (8 × 18.4cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
It’s just nice to be able to post on this eclectic exhibition – to see the installation photographs with vitrines full of the wonders of the age, outdoors, indoors, objects, people, landscapes, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, salted paper prints, albumen silver prints, cyanotypes, platinum prints, and gelatin silver prints, cartes de visite, stereographs, and cabinet cards.
Can you imagine having your photograph taken for the first time?
Entering the photographers studio, com(posing) yourself in front of the camera and the process and performance of doing that, even as the photographer composed you on the glass plate in the camera. A double composition, the constituent parts making the whole, a dance between the sitter, the camera and the photographer.
And there you are, exposed in camera, the latent image revealed by vapour, a talismanic object radiating your spirit.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Installation views of the exhibition The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April – July, 2025
This exhibition presents a bold new history of American photography from the medium’s birth in 1839 to the first decade of the 20th century. Drawn from The Met’s William L. Schaeffer Collection, major works by lauded artists such as Josiah Johnson Hawes, John Moran, Carleton Watkins, and Alice Austen are shown in dialogue with extraordinary photographs by obscure or unknown practitioners made in small towns and cities from coast to coast. Featuring a range of formats, from daguerreotypes and cartes de visite to stereographs and cyanotypes, the show explores the dramatic change in the nation’s sense of itself that was driven by the immediate success of photography as a cultural, commercial, artistic, and psychological preoccupation. In 1835, even before the nearly simultaneous announcement of the invention of the new art in Paris and London, the American philosopher essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson noted with remarkable vision: “Our Age is Ocular.”
Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website
Installation views of the exhibition The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April – July, 2025
The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 will feature more than 250 photographs drawn from the Museum’s William L. Schaeffer Collection
This spring, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present an adventurous new history of American photography from the medium’s birth in 1839 to the first decade of the 20th century. Drawn from the Museum’s William L. Schaeffer Collection – a magnificent recent promised gift to The Met by trustee Philip Maritz and his wife Jennifer – major works by lauded artists such as Josiah Johnson Hawes, John Moran, Carleton E. Watkins, and Alice Austen, will be presented in dialogue with extraordinary photographs by obscure or unknown practitioners made in small towns and cities from coast to coast. The exhibition’s many photographs by little-studied makers, early practitioners, and intrepid amateurs have been selected to reveal the artists’ ingenuity, aesthetic ambition, and lasting achievement. In some 275 photographs – most never before seen – The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 explores the nation’s shifting sense of self, driven by the immediate success of photography as a cultural, commercial, artistic, and psychological preoccupation. The presentation will be on view from April 11 through July 20, 2025.
“Through an impressive array of 19th- and early 20th-century images that capture the complexities of a nation in the midst of profound transformation, this exhibition offers something new even for those well-versed in the history of photography,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “Thanks to the generosity of Jenny and Flip Maritz, we can study and celebrate these formerly hidden treasures by hundreds of both known and unknown makers finally ready for their close-ups. Our hope is to give these works their rightful place in the ever-expanding history of the medium.”
Jeff L. Rosenheim, Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs, added, “The camera and its myriad democratic products – rivals to the greatest literature of the era – are clearly the origin of modern communication and global image-sharing today. If we want to forge a deeper appreciation of contemporary art and the role of the camera in the lives of today’s picture makers, we must recognise and respect the stunning visual power and authenticity of early American photography.”
Carefully assembled over the last 50 years by the Connecticut collector and private dealer William L. Schaeffer, the collection includes splendid photographs in superb condition from every stage of the medium’s early technical development: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, salted paper prints, albumen silver prints, cyanotypes, platinum prints, and gelatin silver prints. The exhibition also features an extensive display of three types of card-mounted photographs – cartes de visite, stereographs, and cabinet cards – each wildly popular in the mid- to late 19th century. When seen through binocular viewers, all the stereographs in the show will be visible in three dimensions.
This is not the first exhibition at The Met to feature photographs drawn from the famous collection of 19th-century photographs amassed by Schaeffer. In 2013, the Museum included more than a dozen Civil War views in Photography and the American Civil War. These are now part of the Museum’s collection through the direct support of another Museum trustee, Joyce Frank Menschel. The gifts by the Maritzes to The Met, as well as those by Joyce Menschel, mark a pinnacle in the institution’s ongoing effort to build the finest holdings of 19th-century American photography in the nation.
Exhibition Overview
In 1839, the invention of photography transformed the world. In December of that year, when the first daguerreotypes were exhibited in New York, former mayor Philip Hone marvelled in his diary at what he described as “one of the wonders of modern times,” adding that “like other miracles, one may almost be excused for disbelieving it without seeing the very process by which it is created.”
The daguerreotype’s remarkable ability to hold permanently an unimaginably detailed likeness on its surface – an image heretofore only seen fleetingly in a mirror – seemed in equal measure unbelievable and perfectly real, darkly mysterious yet scientifically verifiable, a shadowy fiction and yet a beautiful truth. The supernatural quality of the new art was noted by many around the world. As one reviewer, writing for a Baltimore weekly in January 1840, admitted, “We can find no language to express the charm of these pictures painted by no mortal hand.”
Photography arrived almost simultaneously with the steam locomotive, the steam ship, and the electric telegraph – all inventions that dramatically shortened the distances between people and places and forever changed the way civilisations communicate. The medium developed during the age of the type-crazy broadside, the morning and the evening newspaper, and the illustrated weekly. It was also the time of the birth of mercantile libraries (previously only the wealthy had access to books and libraries), and, not surprisingly, of eye strain. The era saw the medical specialisation in the study of eye maladies and the development of optometry and ophthalmology. In 1835, just before the concurrent announcement of the invention of the new art in Paris and London, the American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson noted in his private journal: “Our age is ocular.”
Organised primarily by picture format across three galleries, The New Art illustrates what photography looked like for the average working citizen as well as those at the top of the economic scale. Exhibition visitors can see the clothes individuals wore at work and home, their attitudes to the camera singly and in groups, their ways of sitting or standing or touching, and how they honoured their children and respected their ailing and recently deceased family members. They can look at newly constructed storefronts, see how farmers worked their fields, and measure where new towns met the wilderness. They can observe the near total devastation of Native American communities, especially those living in the Plains, and confront the vicious cruelty of slavery and the influential role of the camera in the Civil War, still the crucible of American history.
In daguerreotypes, tintypes, and paper prints, viewers can also begin to see and comprehend how African Americans during the Civil War, throughout the Reconstruction era, and leading into the 20th century slowly began to replace negative stereotypes with positive self-images. This effort was explicitly nurtured by Frederick Douglass, who had long advocated visits to photography studios. In his nearly constant lecturing circuit across the country, he argued persuasively that no one could be truly free until each individual could sit for and possess their own photographic likeness. In The New Art, men and women of color definitively hold the camera’s attention and the viewer’s as well.
Seen together in The New Art, the subjects in these photographs are not just sitters molded by a camera operator, but the cocreators of their own portraits. One can see this clearly in their eyes and in their many small, seductive gestures. Confronting a photograph that left an artist’s studio more than 150 years ago can be a humbling experience. The magic of photography brings one face to face with the past, and the present is never more vital than it is in these early pictures. That is the medium’s essence, its beauty, and its pathos.
Cameras
The exhibition will also showcase a small selection of 19th-century American cameras to further immerse visitors in the photography process. These have been kindly lent to The Met by Eric Taubman and the Penumbra Foundation.
Press release from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Unknown Maker (American) Young Man with Rooster 1850s Daguerreotype with applied color Case (open): 3 5/8 × 6 1/4 in. (9.2 × 15.9cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808-1901) Winter on the Common, Boston early 1850s Salted paper print from glass negative 7 5/16 × 9 5/16 in. (18.5 × 23.7cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown Maker Studio Photographer at Work c. 1855 Salted paper print from glass negative 5 1/8 × 3 13/16 in. (13 × 9.7cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown Maker (American) Laundress with Washtub 1860s Ambrotype with applied colour Case: 4 1/8 x 3 1/4 in. (4.2 x 3.2cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown Maker (American) Actor Playing Hamlet, Holding a Skull 1860s Tintype with applied colour Case: 6 1/4 × 4 15/16 in. (15.8 × 12.6cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
John Moran (American born England, 1821-1903) Showing Weather Among the Alleghenies 1861-1862 Albumen silver print from glass negative 4 3/4 × 3 5/8 in. (12.1 × 9.2cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown Maker Roller Skate and Boot 1860s Albumen silver print from glass negative Mount: 4 1/8 × 2 7/16 in. (10.5 × 6.2cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown Maker (American) Published by E. & H. T. Anthony (American, 1862-1880s) Specimens of New York Bill Posting, No. 897 from the series “Anthony’s Stereoscopic Views” 1863 Albumen silver print from glass negative Mount: 3 1/4 × 6 3/4 in. (8.3 × 17.1 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829-1916) View on the Columbia River, from the O.R.R., Cascades, No. 1286 from the series “Pacific Coast” 1867 Albumen silver prints from glass negatives Mount: 3 1/4 × 6 3/4 in. (8.2 × 17.1cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Albert Cone Townsend (American, 1827-1914) A Politician 1865-1867 Albumen silver print from glass negative Mount: 4 × 2 7/16 in. (10.1 × 6.2cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910
Introductory panel
The world changed dramatically in September 1839 when photography was introduced to the public and quickly emerged as one of the wonders of modern times. Its invention marks the dawn of our own media-obsessed age in ways that become clear when we explore in depth the special language of daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, stereographs, and other early photographic processes and formats.
This exhibition presents an adventurous new history of American photography from the medium’s beginnings to the first decade of the twentieth century. Major works by established artists are shown in dialogue with superb, never-before-seen photographs by obscure or unknown practitioners working in large urban centres and small towns across the expanding country. Tracing technological advancements and the development of picture formats, The New Art charts the remarkable change in the nation’s sense of itself that was driven by the phenomenal success of photography as a cultural, commercial, and artistic preoccupation.
All the works of art on view are drawn from an extraordinary promised gift to The Met of more than seven hundred rare photographs offered by Jennifer and Philip Maritz in celebration of the Museum’s 150th anniversary in 2020. The donors acquired the collection from William L. Schaeffer, a renowned Connecticut private photography dealer who had quietly built it over the last half century.
The ambrotype is similar in its process to the daguerreotype, but it uses a sheet of glass rather than copper as the image support. Popular in the U.S. from 1854 to 1870, the technique – invented in England but named by an American – was the predictable next development of photography. Although less visually alluring, it had marked advantages over the daguerreotype: it was cheaper to produce, it was easier to see (without glare) in most lighting conditions, and it eliminated the lateral reversal of the image characteristic of the earlier process. This was especially helpful with certain patrons who were annoyed, for example, by a jacket buttoning backward or a wedding ring appearing on the incorrect hand.
Tintypes
The tintype is a distinctively American style of photograph. Patented in February 1856 by Hamilton Lamphere Smith, the technique was inexpensive and relatively easy to master. It appealed as much to enterprising itinerant picture makers, who traveled to rural communities and made outdoor portraits and views, as it did to artists operating brick-and-mortar galleries. Rather than a coating of silver emulsion on copper (the daguerreotype) or glass (the ambrotype), the tintype’s support is a common sheet of blackened iron. Despite its misleading name, which was not in use until 1863, there is no tin present in a tintype. The process was wildly popular in the U.S. until the end of the nineteenth century.
Paper-print Photographs
From 1839 until the start of the Civil War in 1861, most photographs were made on metal (daguerreotypes and tintypes) or glass (ambrotypes). Beginning in the late 1850s, however, paper was widely adopted as the physical support for photographs. This gallery primarily features paper-print photographs and albums that date from 1850 to 1910. They are known by a variety of names that reflect changes in materiality and date of production: salted paper prints, generally made from paper negatives; albumen silver prints, made from glass negatives; and gelatin silver and platinum prints, made from glass or flexible film negatives. In this era, two formats of card-mounted paper-print photographs enjoyed remarkable success: the small carte-de-visite portrait and the stereographic view.
Cartes de Visite
The carte de visite – commonly known as a “cdv” – is a small photograph, usually an albumen silver print made from a glass negative, affixed to a 4-by-2½-inch stiff paper card. Invented in France in the mid-1850s as a portrait medium, it was the world’s first mass-produced and mass-consumed type of photographic collectible. Most photographers marked the mounts with their gallery names as a means of self-promotion and what today we would call brand-building. Ubiquitous in the U.S. from just before 1860 to 1880, the democratic, Victorian-age novelty was wildly popular with the public. “Cartomania,” as the phenomenon was known, is worthy of attention today as a resonant precursor to our own obsession with sharing images of celebrities and ourselves via social media.
Cabinet Cards
A cabinet card is essentially an oversize carte de visite. In vogue for three decades in the U.S. beginning around 1870, the 6 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch card-mounted photograph offered picture makers significantly more space and freedom to compose their visual narratives. After the deadly seriousness of the Civil War, cabinet cards frequently fulfilled a growing appetite for light-hearted diversion. They often feature elaborate props and accessories, exotic backdrops, and, as the century progressed, increasingly playful indoor and outdoor scenes.
Stereographs
Introduced in the late 1850s and prevalent into the twentieth century, the stereograph was not only a culturally significant invention but also a commercial boon to American photographers. When viewed through a device known as a stereoscope (or stereopticon), a pair of photographs of the same subject – made from two slightly different points of view – are perceived in the brain as a single, seemingly three-dimensional image. The dazzling binocular effect created an immersive experience, offering inexpensive armchair travel and a window on the world to millions of Americans.
Cyanotypes
Invented in 1842 by the British scientist John Herschel, a cyanotype is a naturally blue photograph made with iron salts. Early on, most cyanotypes took the form of nature studies made without a camera by placing botanical specimens (or other objects) directly in contact with sensitised paper and then exposing the composition in the sun. In the 1870s architects and engineers began using the process to duplicate their drawings, resulting in what are generally known as “blueprints.” Both economical and easily developed, the cyanotype reemerged in the late 1880s as a favourite choice of professional photographers and amateurs alike. It was often selected for large municipal documentary projects such as those seen here.
Intro and Section Wall Texts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Unknown Maker (American) Railroad Worker (?) with Wye Level c. 1870 Tintype with applied color Case (open): 6 5/16 × 10 3/8 in. (16 × 26.4cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown Maker (American) Musician 1870s Tintype, with lock of hair and cut paper Case (open): 2 × 3 1/2 in. (5.1 × 8.9cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Golder & Robinson (American, active 1870s) Comic Novelty Portrait 1870s Tintype with applied colour 4 × 2 7/16 in. (10.1 × 6.2cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Wenderoth, Taylor & Brown (American, active 1864-1871) The Gallery of Arts & Manufacturers of Philadelphia 1871 Albumen silver prints from glass negative Open: 13 3/4 x 19 in. (34.9 x 48.3cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Anna K. Weaver (American, 1847/48-1913) Welcome 1874 Albumen silver print from glass negative 10 7/8 x 17 1/2 in. (27.8 x 44.5cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Chauncey L. Moore (American, died 1895) Young Man Laying on Roof 1880s-1890s Albumen silver print Mount: 4 1/4 × 6 1/2 in. (10.8 × 16.5cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Alice Austen (American, 1866-1952) Group on Petria, Lake Mahopac August 9, 1888 Albumen silver print from glass negative 6 × 8 1/8 in. (15.2 × 20.7cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
Unknown Maker (American) Schoolmaster Hill Tobogganing, Franklin Park, Roxbury, Massachusetts 1905 Cyanotype 7 × 9 1/4 in. (17.8 × 23.5cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street New York, New York 10028-0198 Phone: 212-535-7710
“Typology remains a highly challenging and complex notion. It operates in a paradoxical regime: on the one hand, this approach can lead to a systematic recording of people and objects based on extreme objectivity; on the other hand, typology corresponds to an individual and arbitrary choice, revealing itself as a disturbing and potentially subversive act.” (Press release)
Every photo within a Becher grid contains its own difference.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Fondazione Prada for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Let’s not beat around the bush. Despite protestations to the contrary (appeals to the objectivity of the image, eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion and opinion; the rigorous frontality of the individual images giving them the simplicity of diagrams, while their density of detail offers encyclopaedic richness) these are subjective images for all their objective desire. The paradox is the more a photographer strives for objectivity, the more ego drops away, the more the work becomes their own: subjective, beautiful, emotive.
“What happens in the case of mutation? Consider the example of the genetic code. Mutation normally occurs when some random event (for example, a burst of radiation or a coding error) disrupts an existing pattern and something else is put in its place instead. Although mutation disrupts pattern, it also presupposes a morphological standard against which it can be measured and understood as mutation. We have seen that in electronic textuality, the possibility for mutation within the text are enhanced and heightened by long coding chains. We can now understand mutation in more fundamental terms. Mutation is critical because it names the bifurcation point at which the interplay between pattern and randomness causes the system to evolve in a new direction. It reveals the productive potential of randomness that is also recognized within information theory when uncertainty is seen as both antagonistic and intrinsic to information.
We are now in a position to understand mutation as a decisive event in the psycholinguistics of information. Mutation is the catastrophe in the pattern / randomness dialectic analogous to castration in the presence / absence dialectic. It marks a rupture of pattern so extreme that the expectation of continuous replication can in longer be sustained. But as with castration, this only appears to be a disruption located at a specific moment. The randomness to which mutation testifies is implicit in the very idea of pattern, for only against the background of nonpattern can pattern emerge. Randomness is the contrasting term that allows pattern to be understood as such.”
Hayles, Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 30-33
In the series Menschen Im Fahrstuhl, 20.11.1969 (People in the elevator, 20.11.1969) shot in 1969, Heinrich Riebesehl conceptualised his interest in the photographic portrait. The portraits of the workers of the Hannoversche Presse (a daily newspaper in Hanover) – taken inside an elevator with a remotely operated small-format camera – are dated and numbered in sequential order: Riebesehl dispensed with a title or a more detailed description of the subjects portrayed. By omitting distinctive elements from the images, such as the profession or age of the subjects, he made the situation the key factor in the shots. In fact, the images are studies of the behaviors of people in that particular space, their body languages and gazes. Riebesehl knew that environment very well, because he had worked for a long time as a photojournalist, before turning to conceptual art photography.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing at left Bernd and Hiller Becher’s Hochöfen (Blast furnaces) 1970-1989; and at right, Candida Höfer’s Bibliotheque Nationale de France XXIII 1997
In the photographs of libraries in London, Paris, and New York, which at first glance appear to be technically scientific records, Candida Höfer manages to capture something that is not visible: ingenuity. The libraries’ rooms have high ceilings, and the rows of seats are neatly arranged. In their impressiveness, they reflect the architecture of the 19th-century conception of knowledge and science, typical of the dominant nations of the time because of their commercial and colonial power. The objective nature of the deserted spaces, precisely in how they seem to be neutral to the individual needs of the students, suggests something in the image that could hardly be less objective: the possibility for intellectual exchange that these spaces promise and deliver in Höfer’s photographs.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
In Candida Höfer’s photographs shot in zoos, the animals document a specific form of loneliness in modern times. In these images, the lines of development of two disciplines collide. Not only in the photographs, but also in reality, they function independently of each other: modern architecture and behavioural research. Modern architecture has become established in zoological gardens but has never considered the animal and its needs. Based on the knowledge gained from behavioural research, by choosing to portray iconic large mammals such as giraffes, lions, and polar bears, Höfer has represented the dilemma of a world in which entire species are threatened with extinction and in which zoos see themselves as a kind of ‘Noah’s Ark.’
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Wassertürme (Water towers) 1966-1986
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing Andreas Gursky’s Paris, Montparnasse 1993
Andreas Gursky’s large-format work, Paris, Montparnasse (1993) has become an iconic example of his work. It depicts the Maine-Montparnasse II block of flats, located on Rue Commandant-Mouchotte in Paris and built between 1959 and 1964 on a design by French architect Jean Dubuisson. This is one of the first images that Gursky created using digital post-production. In real life, the building does not look the way it appears in the image: using a digital editing process, Gursky transformed the façade into a game of differences and repetitions by processing the windows. In fact, by reiterating forms that are always identical, he produced a seemingly infinite number of them, with colour variations that are activated by a calculated dynamic.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing Andreas Gursky’s 99 Cent 1999
In 99 Cent (1999), Andreas Gursky photographed supermarket shelves using the same formal scheme used in Paris, Montparnasse (1993). The shelves crammed with everyday products such as detergents represent the inexhaustible flow of goods in the global system of production and distribution. Gursky’s work conveys a feeling of disorientation generated by the excessive stimuli and details typical of a shelf in a hypermarket.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Andreas Gursky (German, b. 1955) 99 Cent 1999 (remastered 2009) Inkjet print
“Typologien” is an extensive study dedicated to 20th-century German photography. The exhibition, hosted within Podium, the central building of the Milan headquarters, is curated by Susanne Pfeffer, art historian and director of the MUSEUM MMK FÃœR MODERNE KUNST, Frankfurt.
The project attempts to apply the principle of “typology,” which originated in 17th- and 18th-century botany to categorise and study plants, and appeared in photography in the early 1900s, affirming itself in Germany throughout the 20th century. Paradoxically, the given formal principle allows for unexpected convergences of German artists spanning different generations and the manifestation of their individual approaches.
The exhibition path will follow a typological rather than a chronological order, bringing together more than 600 photographic works by 25 established and lesser-known artists essential for recounting a century of German photography, including Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sibylle Bergemann, Karl Blossfeldt, Ursula Böhmer, Christian Borchert, Margit Emmrich, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Lotte Jacobi, Jochen Lempert, Simone Nieweg, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Heinrich Riebesehl, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Thomas Struth, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), and Marianne Wex. A system of suspended walls will create geometric partitions in the exhibition space, forming unexpected connections between artistic practices that differ from each other, but are united by a common principle or intention of classification.
As stated by Susanne Pfeffer, “Only through juxtaposition and direct comparison is it possible to find out what is individual and what is universal, what is normative or real. Differences are evidence of the abundance of nature and the imagination of humans: the fern, the cow, the human being, the ear; the bus stop, the water tower, the stereo system, the museum. The typological comparison allows differences and similarities to emerge and the specifics to be grasped. Unknown or previously unperceived things about nature, the animal, or the object, about place and time become visible and recognisable.”
In photography, employing typologies means affirming an equivalence between images and the absence of hierarchies in terms of represented subjects, motifs, genres, and sources. Despite this, typology remains a highly challenging and complex notion. It operates in a paradoxical regime: on the one hand, this approach can lead to a systematic recording of people and objects based on extreme objectivity; on the other hand, typology corresponds to an individual and arbitrary choice, revealing itself as a disturbing and potentially subversive act.
The hypothesis that photography plays a key role not only in fixing distinctive phenomena but also in organising and classifying a plurality of visible manifestations remains a vital force in today’s artistic efforts to navigate the complexity of our social and cultural realities. With the spread of digital imagery and practices, the concept of typology continues to be questioned and re-defined by contemporary photographers and artists.
As underlined by Susanne Pfeffer, “The unique, the individual, seems to have been absorbed into a global mass, the universality of things is omnipresent. The Internet allows typologies to be created in a matter of seconds. And yet this is precisely when it seems important – to artists – to take a closer look.” As further explained by Pfeffer, “When the present seems to have abandoned the future, we need to observe the past more closely. When everything seems to be shouting at you and becoming increasingly brutal, it is important to take a quiet pause and use the silence to see and think clearly. When differences are not seen as something other, but turned into something that divides us, it is crucial to notice what we have in common. Typologies allow us to identify remarkable similarities and subtle differences.”
Text from the Fondazione Prada website
Typologien | Fondazione Prada Milano
An extensive study dedicated to 20th-century German photography. “Typologien” attempts to apply the principle of “typology,” which originated in 17th- and 18th-century botany to categorise and study plants, and appeared in photography in the early 1900s, affirming itself in Germany throughout the 20th century.
The exhibition, hosted within Podium, the central building of the Milan headquarters, is curated by Susanne Pfeffer, art historian and director of the MUSEUM MMK FÃœR MODERNE KUNST, Frankfurt.
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing the work of Ursula Schulz-Dornburg
Ursula Schulz-Dornburg was visiting convents and monasteries in Armenia when she happened to come across one of these unique bus stops, partly futuristic and partly surreal. From 1997 to 2011, she portrayed numerous bus stops, often in very remote locations. In a country that was experiencing a dramatic transition, from being part of the Soviet Union to its new status as an independent republic, these bus stops look like the remnants of a utopian socialism, which in Schulz-Dornburg’s images are kept alive mainly by women and children. The photographer said she was so impressed by the dignity of those women waiting at the bus stop, who even in the most extreme poverty looked as though they were on their way to the Opera, that she asked their permission to photograph them. What emerged was a document of a quiet life that manages with dignity to deal with even the harshest adversity.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition ‘Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany’ at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing at left, flower photographs by Thomas Struth; and at right, Andreas Gursky’s Untitled XVIII 2015 (below)
Andreas Gursky (German, b. 1955) Untitled XVIII 2015 Inkjet print Atelier Andreas Gursky
Unlike works such as Paris, Montparnasse (1993), in the Untitled series he produced between 2015 and 2016, Andreas Gursky depicted rows of tulips without providing a title or location for the pictures. Viewed from a distance, the photographs are reminiscent of Abstract Expressionist paintings, but even looking at them at close range, the lushly blooming flowers are undiscernible. Living in Düsseldorf, close to the Dutch border, Gursky is familiar with the intensively cultivated Dutch tulip crops, where no unwanted insect or worm would possibly be allowed to spoil the bulbs. The sterility of industrial flower production, far from being harmless and healthy, is captured by Gursky in images that, in turn, are neither reassuring nor pleasant.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing the flower photographs of Thomas Struth with at left, Small Closed Sunflower, No. 18, Winterthur 1992 (below); and at third left, Single Red Lily – No. 51, Düsseldorf (Botanischer Garten) 1993 (below)
A student of the artist Gerhard Richter and later of the photographer Bernd Becher at the Art Düsseldorf Academy from 1973 to 1980, Thomas Struth habitually works in thematic cycles centered around museums, flowers, and portraits of families and passers-by. The “exact vision” – the intention underpinning Struth’s photography – can be seen in both the portraits of two cornflowers shoot in Düsseldorf and the image of a red lily in the city’s Botanical Garden. Struth notes down the name or address of the site where he took the photograph, as in the case of the flower of a hollyhock portrayed in Düsseldorf’s Nordpark. This is to evoke the poetry of the place and provide an exact account of the plants’ origin, preserving the authenticity of the shots without digitally altering them.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing the work of Hiller Becher
In terms of the objectivity of the approach, Hilla Becher’s 1965 photographic studies of an oak leaf, a cypress branch, and a ginkgo leaf are in keeping with the series on types of industrial buildings that she made with her husband Bernd Becher. Thematically, however, these studies represent a sort of return to the studies of branches and shoots made years earlier by Karl Blossfeldt. Unlike Blossfeldt’s images, the leaves, particularly the poplar leaves, are not uniformly lit. The shadowy areas cannot be clearly seen with the naked eye even on close and objective observation. One could say that nature has penetrated the technique, disappearing.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing the work of Karl Blossfeldt
Karl Blossfeldt (German, 1865-1932) Adiantum pedatum, haarfarn, junge, noch eingerollte Wedel [Maidenhair fern, young, still curled fronds] Nd Gelatin silver print Courtesy Berlin University of Arts, Archive – Karl Blossfeldt Collection in cooperation with Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne
The young, still curling fronds of an ‘Unspecified fern’ are a kind of introduction to the themes that Karl Blossfeldt explored, and his working methods. Faced with a seemingly infinite variety of natural forms, the photographer tried to find an order by using tools borrowed from scientific botany. Blossfeldt collected plant samples tirelessly in and around Berlin, dried them, and enlarged those details not visible to the naked eye. However, the photographer was seeking something different from the aims of botanical research. This is already revealed by the title of the first volume, a publication of his photographs of plants – Urformen der Kunst (Art Forms in Plants, 1928). Right from the title, he explicitly refers to the model he used for the book’s conception: Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen in der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), published in 1924 and now a classic. Therefore, Blossfeldt sought archetypal formal models in nature, such as the fronds of the fern.
In his search for a primal form of nature that could then be shaped into art according to the natural model – as in the case of the curled fronds of the fern – Karl Blossfeldt applied the systematic method specific to botany with a kind of exterior mimicry. He moved from the frond of an unidentified fern, in other words, not yet classified according to an order, to a fern that could at least be identified within a botanical classification. The frond of the order Polypodiales certainly has typological similarities to all the fronds photographed by Blossfeldt, but it remains a case apart in that it cannot be classified in any of the orders in which the other ferns are classified. However, this level of identification is a relevant indication: these very diverse plants in fact number about 9000 known species, and probably many more yet to be identified. Moreover, identifying their species is often only possible for a few specialists, and is even more difficult given the variety of forms that ferns take during their development.
The curled fronds of some ferns from the Osmundaceae family, royal ferns, with their botanical classification, confirm one of the fundamental intentions of Karl Blossfeldt’s studies: only by carefully analyzing the structure of a plant can one fully understand its natural form. He developed his approach opposite to that of the Jugendstil, the artistic movement – a variation of French Art Nouveau and Italian Liberty – that stylized plant forms and conceived of them primarily as ornamental elements. Blossfeldt was not interested in criticism or rejection of the ornamental, but in a radical reconfiguration of it. This could only be achieved by thoroughly studying natural forms.
Three still-curled fronds of a specimen of bracken fern – scientific name Hypolepidaceae – on the one hand, appear denaturalised, because Karl Blossfeldt focused his lens on the detail, leaving out the natural context. But on the other hand, they reveal a scrupulous observation of the plant world. By nature, in fact, fronds develop according to a strict formal principle – no natural form is purely random – and yet they eventually differ from one another. The fronds of ferns could appear as decalcomanias, given that in Blossfeldt’s representation they take on an almost mechanical quality for the observer. The emphasis on differences in resemblance, which Blossfeldt achieved more or less consciously by repeating the leaf motif in differently shaped ferns, can be considered one of the main aesthetic innovations of his photography.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing the work of Marianne Wex with at left, Let’s Take Back Our Space: ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures 1977-2018 (below); and at right, Arm and Leg Positions, Lying on the Ground 1977/2018
With the photographic project Let’s Take Back our Space, which resulted in a book published in 1979 with the subtitle “‘Female’ and ‘Male’ Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures,” Marianne Wex produced one of the seminal works in 1970s feminist art studies. Starting with a scrupulous observation of the body influenced by the method of structuralism, a scientific approach that studies a whole by breaking it down into elements and units, Wex took hundreds of photographs arranged in specific thematic sections devoted, for example, to specific leg and arm positions. Wex succeeded in showing how apparently natural body postures are actually the result of centuries of social and cultural structures, not a ‘natural’ or genetic predisposition. Her photographs capture movements, postures, and gestures, documenting habits of the body that have been taught and passed down for generations, shaping the behaviour of men and women according to patriarchal expectations.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Marianne Wex (German, 1937-2020) Let’s Take Back Our Space: ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures 1977-2018 Inkjet print
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing photographs from Wolfgang Tillmans’ series Concorde 1997
In 1997, Wolfgang Tillmans photographed the Concorde, a supersonic passenger plane, in flight during landing and take-off. For him, the plane represented one of the last remaining inventions of the 1960s technological utopia. With its futuristic shape, supersonic speed, and the formidable roar it made during take-off and landing, the plane fascinated generations of technology enthusiasts. Today, the Concorde is a thing of the past and, together with the Titanic, epitomises more of a technological shock than a promise in the history of technology. These photographs reveal one of the aspects that Tillmans wants to highlight: they are symbols of “a super-modern anachronism” that ultimately left nothing behind but air pollution and environmental destruction.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Wolfgang Tillmans (German, b. 1968) Concorde L449-21 1997 Inkjet print Courtesy of Galerie Buchholz
Fondazione Prada presents Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany, an extensive study dedicated to 20-century German photography, at its Milan venue from 3 April to 14 July 2025. The exhibition, hosted within Podium, the central building of the Milan headquarters, is curated by Susanne Pfeffer, art historian and director of the MUSEUM MMK FÃœR MODERNE KUNST, Frankfurt.
The exhibition attempts to apply the principle of “typology,” which originated in 17th- and 18th-century botany to categorise and study plants, and appeared in photography in the early 1900s, affirming itself in Germany throughout the 20th century. Paradoxically, the given formal principle allows for unexpected convergences of German artists spanning different generations and the manifestation of their individual approaches.
The exhibition path follows a typological rather than a chronological order, bringing together more than 600 photographic works by 25 artists essential for recounting over a century of German photography. The exhibition features photographs by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sibylle Bergemann, Karl Blossfeldt, Ursula Böhmer, Christian Borchert, Margit Emmrich, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Lotte Jacobi, Jochen Lempert, Simone Nieweg, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Heinrich Riebesehl, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Thomas Struth, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Umbo (Otto Umbehr), and Marianne Wex. The project forms unexpected connections between artistic practices that differ from each other but are united by a common principle or intention of classification.
As stated by Susanne Pfeffer, “Only through juxtaposition and direct comparison is it possible to find out what is individual and what is universal, what is normative or real. Differences are evidence of the abundance of nature and the imagination of humans: the fern, the cow, the human being, the ear; the bus stop, the water tower, the stereo system, the museum. The typological comparison allows differences and similarities to emerge and the specifics to be grasped. Unknown or previously unperceived things about nature, the animal, or the object, about place and time become visible and recognizable.”
In photography, employing typologies means affirming an equivalence between images and the absence of hierarchies in terms of represented subjects, motifs, genres, and sources.
Despite this, typology remains a highly challenging and complex notion. It operates in a paradoxical regime: on the one hand, this approach can lead to a systematic recording of people and objects based on extreme objectivity; on the other hand, typology corresponds to an individual and arbitrary choice, revealing itself as a disturbing and potentially subversive act.
The hypothesis that photography plays a key role not only in fixing distinctive phenomena but also in organizing and classifying a plurality of visible manifestations remains a vital force in today’s artistic efforts to navigate the complexity of our social and cultural realities. With the spread of digital imagery and practices, the concept of typology continues to be questioned and re-defined by contemporary photographers and artists.
As underlined by Susanne Pfeffer, “The unique, the individual, seems to have been absorbed into a global mass, the universality of things is omnipresent. The Internet allows typologies to be created in a matter of seconds. In this very precise moment – it seems even more important to follow the artists’ gaze and look closely.” As further explained by Pfeffer, “When the present seems to have abandoned the future, we need to look closer at the past. When everything seems to be shouting at you and becoming increasingly brutal, it is important to take a quiet pause and use the silence to see and think clearly. When differences are no longer perceived seen as something other but are transformed into elements of division, we have to recognize what we have in common. Typologies allow us to identify undeniable similarities and subtle differences.”
In the early 20th century, Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was one of the first artists to transfer the classification system used in botanical studies to photography. His vast and detailed plant atlas represented a foundational moment for German Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). This artistic and photographic movement emerged in the 1920s during the Weimar Republic and promoted the importance of categories and distinctions and the remarkable ability of photography as a medium to explore the very idea of typology.
Another pioneering figure was August Sander (1876-1964), who published his photo book Antlitz der Zeit (Face of Our Time) in 1929, at the time excerpted from his landmark project Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of the 20th Century). Described by Walter Benjamin as a “training atlas” of physiognomic perception, Antlitz der Zeit was an ambitious attempt to portray the diversity and the structure of German society using class, gender, age, occupation, and social background as distinct categories of a rigid and neutral classification system.
Both Karl Blossfeldt’s and August Sander’s typologies were fundamental for Bernd Becher (1931-2007) and Hilla Becher (1934-2015) when, at the end of the fifties, they began an enormous and lifelong documentation and preservation project of industrial architecture. In 1971, they described the “industrial constructions” as “objects, not motifs”. They stated that “the information we want to provide is only created through the sequence, through the juxtaposition of similar or different objects with the same function”. Their black-and-white monuments, or “anonymous sculptures”, isolated against a monochromatic sky, centered, framed in the same format and arranged in a block, became an essential reference for American and European Post-Minimalist and Conceptual artists. They also represented a rich heritage for younger generations of German artists and photographers, such as Andreas Gursky (b. 1955), Candida Höfer (b. 1944), Simone Nieweg (b. 1962), Thomas Ruff (b. 1958) and Thomas Struth (b. 1954), who studied at the Academy in Düsseldorf in the class led by Bernd and Hilla Becher from 1976.
Hans-Peter Feldmann (1941-2023), internationally recognised for his fundamental contribution to conceptual art, traced a complementary trajectory in German photography. In his works, he documented everyday objects and historical events and combined deadpan humor with a systematic approach to accumulating, cataloguing, and rearranging elements of contemporary visual culture. In his series, he invented personal yet very political typologies and adopted a deliberate snapshot approach with a commercial aesthetic. For his work Alle Kleider einer Frau (All the Clothes of a Woman, 1975), he took 35mm-format photographs of underwear, hosiery, T-shirts, dresses, trousers, skirts, socks, and shoes, all hanging on hangers on the wall or laid on dark fabric. With his project Die Toten 1967-1993 (The Dead 1967-1993, 1996-1998), he paid homage to individuals murdered in the context of the political and terroristic movements in Post-War Germany. As pointed out by Susanne Pfeffer, “With his typologies, he emphasised the equal value of all photographs, their image sources and motifs, and underscored the de-hierarchisation inherent in every typology.”
In his apparently random collection of found, personal or pornographic images, press clippings, and historical photos of Nazi concentration camps, the Red Army Faction and German reunification, a “private album” named Atlas (1962 – present), Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) seemed to deny or challenge the very idea of typology. Instead, he took the principle of equivalence between images and their trivialization process to the limits, creating a jarring contrast and an acute awareness of a repressed collective memory.
In the seventies and eighties, in a dialectic relationship with the artistic lessons of the Bechers, Gursky, Höfer, Ruff, and Struth progressively abandoned the radicalism and black- and-white purism of their professors. They explored the colorful dominance of banality in their series of individual or family portraits, monumental and detailed city views, and spectacular documentation of cultural or tourist sites, generating a plethora of contemporary and conflicting typologies.
In the late seventies and early eighties, multimedia artist Isa Genzken (b. 1948) engaged in a direct dialogue with the photographic medium. In 1979, she created a series entitled Hi-Fi that featured advertisements of avant-garde Japanese stereo equipment, organising them in an imaginary commercial catalog. The second series entitled Ohr (Ear) (1980) depicted, in large-scale colour close-ups, the ears of random women Genzken photographed on the streets of New York City. She transferred the traditional portrait genre to physiognomic detail and ironically investigating the absolute singularity and infinite individual differentiation the photographic portrait can record.
The series that August Sander dedicated to women is perhaps where the idea of categorising an archetype or social type shows the cracks most visibly. Whether it is an architect’s companion, an industrialist’s wife, or a high society lady, in Sander’s images the individuality of the female subject, in dress and posture, always prevails over type. And even when the subjects display characteristics that could be traced back to their class, origin, or occupation – such as the secretary who smokes – all the women depicted, from the sculptor to the photographer or the gym teacher, express ‘their own’ individuality. This is most evident when comparing the portraits of women with those of civil servants, whose gazes already show a serial uniformity associated with their positions.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
In 1935, Erich Sander, August Sander’s son, was sensationally put on trial and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for subversive activities. He served most of his sentence in Siegburg Prison, where he worked as the prison’s photographer. Determined to continue his resistance activities even in prison, he did not limit himself to taking ‘official’ photographs. He convinced his fellow prisoners to show him the scars of torture and have their portraits taken. Those photographs seemed to him to be in line with his father’s work. He had learned his trade from his father and worked with him before his imprisonment. He stayed in close contact with his parents during his ten years of imprisonment, and through them, managed to get many of those images out of the prison, leaving a valuable record of Nazi atrocities. Due to a misdiagnosis and lack of medical treatment during his imprisonment, Erich Sander died in 1944, six months before the end of his sentence.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing photographs by Thomas Struth with at left, The Richter Family 1, Cologne 2002; and at right, The Consolandi Family, Milan 1996
Thomas Struth (German, b. 1954) The Richter Family 1, Cologne (installation view) 2002 C-print Courtesy of the artist
Thomas Struth (German, b. 1954) The Richter Family 1, Cologne 2002 C-print Courtesy of the artist
Thomas Struth (German, b. 1954) The Consolandi Family, Milan (installation view) 1996 C-print Courtesy of the artist
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing Thomas Ruff portraits
Between 1977 and 1985, Thomas Ruff studied with Bernd Becher at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf, where he himself has been teaching photography since 2000. During the 1980s, he photographed people from his circle of acquaintances in a series of identically framed shots. With the subjects portrayed in a half-length pose against a neutral background, the images are striking for their unusually large size. Every detail, every pore, and every imperfection in the skin is visible in the faces of the subjects, whose names Ruff also provides. The strictness of the composition, the uniform lighting, and the impassive gaze of the people portrayed give the images an objective and neutral atmosphere. What formally appears detached and unemotional immediately raises questions about the subject portrayed: who is this person? What does he or she do in life? With this series, Ruff challenges the conventions of the traditional portrait, encouraging the viewer to question not only the identity of the subject, but also the role of the photographer and the meaning of the portrait itself.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing at left, Jochen Lempert’s The Skins of Alca Impennis 1992-2022; and at right, Thomas Ruff’s Portrait of Pia Stadtbäumer and Portrait of Simone Buch both 1988
Jochen Lempert (German, b. 1958) The Skins of Alca Impennis (detail) 1992-2022 Gelatin silver prints on Bartya paper 54 parts Courtesy of Jochen Lempert, BQ, Berlin, and ProjecteSD, Barcelona
The fifty-four profiles of the Alca impennis (the great auk), a large flightless bird that became extinct after its last sighting in 1852, are part of a project that took Jochen Lempert more than a decade to complete. Using the same methods, Lempert photographed the profiles of many of the seventy-eight specimens of the Alca impennis preserved in natural history collections. Having become increasingly rare due to hunting, the Alca impennis was increasingly coveted by collectors, so the skins of this species fetched very high prices. The presence of such a large number of stuffed specimens in collections was therefore one of the causes of this species’ extinction.
Lempert’s portraits also hint at a more significant phenomenon. Very marked individual variations can be found in the appearance of individual specimens of a species, testifying to the great degree of differentiation within the species. Therefore, the concept of species, or its depiction in a scientific classification book, provides something akin to an ‘ideal type,’ rather than a true representation of the actual variety found in real life.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing the work of Rosemarie Trockel, Elena I & II, 1993/2025, Maculata I & II, 1993/2025, Mela I & II, 1993/2025
The portraits of the dogs Mela, Elena, and Maculata grew out of Rosemarie Trockel’s interest in animals and the relationship between animals and humans, a subject she has been working with for a long time. From the drawings of monkeys, which represent a kind of monument to the profound melancholy of primates kept in captivity by humans, to A House for Pigs and People / Ein Haus føur Schweine und Menschen created with Carsten Höller for documenta X in 1997, Trockel’s exploration of the relationship between humans and animals involves various forms of expression and themes. However, in this case, the double portraits of the three dogs, photographed frontally and in profile, indicate a further correlation. If “every animal is an artist,” as Trockel has stated, these portraits seem to call these roles into question: who directs and who stages who? Does the artist portray the dogs or do the dogs direct the artist?
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Installation view of the exhibition Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany at Fondazione Prada, Milan showing at left, the work of Ursula Böhmer and her series All Ladies – Cows in Europe, 1998-2011; and at right, the work of Isa Genzken and her series Ohr, 1980
Getting a cow to stand still in a frontal pose and look towards the camera, as Ursula Böhmer managed to do with a Highlander in the Grampian Mountains, is certainly not an easy task, but one that requires patience and trust, one of the prerequisites for this project. Between 1998 and 2011, Böhmer visited 25 European countries to photograph specimens of cattle breeds in the places where their breeding history began. These breeds, many of them at risk of extinction, had to be portrayed in their own environments in order to illustrate how these environments had influenced their appearance. What emerged was a series of images of docile animals portrayed in often harsh landscapes, which at the same time document the ongoing conditioning by the environment on the forms of life also in breeding conditions.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
In 1980, Isa Genzken took a series of close-ups of the ears of women she encountered on the streets of New York. The typical portraiture approach used in the photographs exalts and enhances the characteristics of the represented subject, on the one hand, but at the same time, with the anonymity of the immortalized figure, creates a contrast. In the course of the evolution of the human species, the ear has lost its value in terms of expressive power. While in many animal species ears still play an important role in expressing emotions, in the human being they are stiffly positioned at the sides of the head and no longer react to emotional states along with the facial muscles. Georg Simmel, a sociologist of the senses, sees the ear as merely a passive appendage in the human appearance. For Simmel, the ear is the selfish organ par excellence, which simply takes without giving. Genzken contradicts this verdict, because the ears she photographs, with all the ornaments attached, eloquently express individual differences.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
In her first institutional exhibition, presented at the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld in 1979, alongside sculptures and drawings, Isa Genzken exhibited a photography series dedicated to the latest and most expensive Hi-Fi systems. She created it by cutting out ads for turntables and amplifiers from international magazines and then photographing them. As she told photographer Wolfgang Tillmans in an interview, those advertisements showcased some of the most advanced technology of the time, highlighting cutting-edge design. Genzken also stated that a sculpture should be at least as modern as those devices. Her photography series dedicated to Hi-Fi systems can therefore be interpreted as a conceptual and aesthetic investigation of whether or not her sculptures and works could be compared to the everyday beauty of a stereo system.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Sigmar Polke (German, 1941-2010) Handschuhpalme (Glove palm tree) 1966 From the series … Höhere Wesen Befehlen, 1968 (… Higher beings Command, 1968) 13 stampe offset su carta artistica / 13 offset prints on art paper MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST, Frankfurt am Main
Lotte Jacobi, known for her portraits of intellectuals including Martin Buber and W.E.B du Bois, artists such as Marc Chagall, and poets including Robert Frost and Vladimir Mayakovsky, created a series of plant portraits in 1930. Apart from the individual flowers of the Orchis latifolia, the broad-leaved helleborine or orchid, and Neottia nidus avis, the bird’s nest, she photographed an orchid in its entirety. The names of the plants, which Jacobi, like Karl Blossfeldt, makes explicit in the titles of the photographs, are an integral part of the unique poetics of the subjects. With her plant portraits, Jacobi followed in the tradition of the 1920s workers’ movement’s vision of nature. In fact, Jacobi was a member of the Vereinigung der Arbeiterfotografen Deutschlands (Union of German Labor Photographers), an organisation of photographers who documented the social life and struggles of the German working class.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
In his photography, Thomas Struth has always been interested in the streets, squares, and houses of cities that consciously or unconsciously shape our experience, as well as that of the passers-by who walk through them. The study People on the Street, Düsseldorf 1974-78 explores the movements and figures of individuals passing in front of the camera lens. The subjects are never shot at close range. While some facial features are blurred in movement, others are clearly visible. Even if they are differentiated by their jackets, coats, or bags, all the subjects have a directional gait in common. No one is simply ‘here’: they all have an intention, which each person pursues in their own way.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Umbo (Otto Umbehr) (German, 1902-1980) Untitled (Kindergarten) 1928 Gelatin silver print Berlinische Galerie – Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture, Berlin Permanent loan from the Federal Republic of Germany represented by the Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media
Umbo – born Otto Umbehr – found his expressive tool in the camera in 1926. In the early 1920s he studied at the Bauhaus with the intention of becoming a painter, until Walter Gropius, the director of the Institute, expelled him from the school for improper conduct. He then found in photography the medium that allowed him to work with his distinctive play of light and shadow. Photographs such as Unheimliche Straße (Eerie Street, 1928), Am Strand (auch Strandleben) (On the beach [also beach life], 1930) and Ohne Titel (Kindergarten) (Untitled [Kindergarten], 1930) epitomize his artistic innovations. There is nothing random in these images: everything has been composed. Umbo’s photographs are the opposite of snapshots or shots that capture the emotion of a moment; they express a formal intent without overpowering reality. Therefore, with all their poetry, they retain an abstract component. What clearly surfaces in this primacy of composition is his connection to the Bauhaus philosophy, which emphasised design and structure over emotion or spontaneity.
Exhibition text from the Fondazione Prada by Cord Riechelmann
Fondazione Prada Milan Largo Isarco 2, within the Podium spaces 20139 MILAN Phone: +39 02 5666 2611
The work of Tata Ronkholz belongs to the Düsseldorf School of Photography which refers to a group of photographers who studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the mid 1970s with teachers Bernd and Hiller Becher – whose conceptual rationale for an objective excellence for art photography emerged from the German Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) modern realist movement of the 1920s.
“This [objective] conceptualisation opens up an expanded terrain of becoming for photography … The work of these artists is vital to an understanding of the place of photography within the observation, construction and taxonomy of contemporary culture and its pictorial representation.”1
Ronkholz’s photographs are images of infinite focus … where the attention of the photographer is tightly controlled as to the conceptualisation of the image and the constructed reality that is being re/presented.
Ronkholz was aware of the importance of these ephemeral structures, the importance of documenting them, these industrial gates, kiosks and small shops, which arise and then are gone. Here today, gone tomorrow (much like life itself). “These often small, sometimes freestanding structures, with their designs, surroundings, product offerings, and advertisements, serve as vivid testaments to everyday culture.”2
And testaments to the transitory nature of contemporary culture.
I love these photographs of everyday things for their clear seeing, their frontality, their directness, which allows the viewer to address a reality which might have passed them by as they walk the streets in a dream.
2/ Text from the Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne website
Many thankx to Die Photographische Sammlung/ SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
An exhibition by Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur in collaboration with the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf and VAN HAM Art Estate
The artist and photographer Tata Ronkholz (1940-1997) will be honoured in the spring with her first major retrospective. She is one of the first members of the class taught by Bernd Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Due to her early death Ronkholz’s work has long been recognised only partly even though her oeuvre reflects a profound and continuous engagement with multiple themes. Ronkholz is best known for her series of kiosks and small shops in the Rhineland and Ruhr area, which she began in 1977. These often small, sometimes freestanding structures, with their designs, surroundings, product offerings, and advertisements, serve as vivid testaments to everyday culture. Additionally, she created a photographic series documenting various industrial gates. Together with her fellow student Thomas Struth, she documented Düsseldorf’s Rheinhafen district from 1979 to 1981 before its transformation into the so-called “Medienhafen”.
The exhibition will also feature surprising insights into Ronkholz’s early works as a freelance product designer and photographs of architectural forms taken in Italy. An accompanying catalog will be published.
Text from the Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne website
The retrospective finds its stylistically fitting context in the Photographic Collection, with the on-site Bernd and Hilla Becher Archive. Ronkholz’s works follow in the tradition of objective, documentary photography – a tradition decisively shaped by the Bechers. Her work is characterised by clear compositions, a serial approach, and a documentary focus on architectural structures and everyday architectures. Using her large-format camera, she produced sharply defined and realistic photographs in which the subject matter, rather than the photographer’s personal signature, takes center stage. Her work is predominantly in black and white, although color images also appear, demonstrating her ambition to engage with the emerging artistic colour photography in Germany during the 1970s and 80s.
In this way, the subjects in Tata Ronkholz’s work indirectly testify to social, cultural, and economic change while also revealing how the personal tastes of shop owners influenced the design of these small retail outlets. Viewed in this light, her images offer a vivid basis for a sociological examination of our own species, addressing fundamental societal questions: What needs did we have and do we have? What did we need and do we need to live? How do we shape our surroundings? What role do images play?
Another significant series is dedicated to industrial gates, photographed between 1977 and 1985. The simple black-and-white images of these gates, with their grids and frameworks, offer glimpses into the interiors of industrial areas, their graphic structure appearing almost abstract. In the photographs, the gates function as interfaces between private and public space, between interior and exterior, and between activity and calm. Their aesthetic, reminiscent of abstract artworks, imbues the everyday with a new significance.
A particularly impressive documentary series is the body of work on the Düsseldorf Rhine Harbor, which Ronkholz began in 1979 together with her then fellow student Thomas Struth. The project originated from the planned redevelopment of the historic harbor area – a site that, in its original form, was considered an industrial area of significant urban historical and architectural importance. Struth observed the initial changes from his studio and convinced Tata Ronkholz to join the project. Together, they set out to document the harbor in its entirety, capturing its historic buildings, technical installations, and operational structures. They recorded façades, interiors, silos, warehouses, crane structures, and harbor basins in carefully composed images, before these elements partially disappeared or were fundamentally altered during the restructuring. The photographs strikingly showcase the industrial architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries while simultaneously highlighting the transformation from a center of commerce and production to today’s media harbor. Overall, this critically composed documentation of the Düsseldorf Rhine Harbor stands as an exemplary case for the complex issues of urban redevelopment in other locations as well.
In addition, the exhibition presents works that highlight Ronkholz’s achievements as a product designer, including depictions of geometrically shaped furniture and lighting fixtures as well as designs for office and cafeteria furniture. Between 1961 and 1965, she studied at the Werkkunstschule Krefeld with a focus on furniture design and subsequently worked as a freelance designer until 1977. Her designs are characterised by clear forms and functional elegance, as exemplified by the “Spherical Light” developed in collaboration with Adolf Luther, featuring a convex glass element. Finally, the retrospective also presents early photographs of architectural forms created in 1975/76 in Italy and France. Even in these works, her strong affinity for the aspects of the designed world across various areas of life becomes apparent.
Accompanying the exhibition is the catalog Tata Ronkholz: Designed World. A Retrospective published by Schirmer / Mosel Verlag, featuring texts by renowned authors (ger/en). The exhibition is supported by the City of Düsseldorf and VAN HAM Cologne.
Press release from Die Photographische Sammlung/ SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne
‘Remember Me. Postmortems from the M. G. Jacob Collection’ and ‘Through Light. The First 20 Years of Photography in the Photo Library Collections’
Postmortem curators: Monica Leoni, Elisabeth Sciarretta with Laura Gasparini and Michael G. Jacob
Attraverso la luce curators: Monica Leoni, Elisabeth Sciarretta with Laura Gasparini
Sleeping beauty
“When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotten.
When this you see remember me
Lest I should be forgotten.”
This is the first posting on Art Blart on the phenomenon of postmortem photography for exhibitions on this subject are few and far between.
Any photograph is a “little death” which “refers to the concept of “la petite mort” or “the little death,” a French idiom and euphemism for the momentary loss of consciousness or breath, often associated with orgasm, but also used to describe the act of freezing a moment in time through photography. This concept suggests that photography, by capturing a specific moment, essentially stops time and thus, in a way, creates a small, contained death of that moment.” (Google AI Overview)
All photographs (and especially postmortem photography where the deceased are memorialised through images) can be seen as “memento mori”, a Latin phrase meaning “remember you must die,” reminding us that of the impermanence of life – for photographs “capture a moment in time, forever preserving a fleeting instant and highlighting the passage of time and the inevitability of death.” (Google AI Overview)
As Susan Sontag observed, “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.” (On Photography)
Victorians were faced with the vicissitudes of fortune, and death at any age was a common occurrence due to illness with no antibiotics available to treat the many lethal diseases. They became stoic in the face of the impermanence of life, stoic in the face of death and through photography, sought to record into permanence the likenesses of the departed (the beloved), so that they could remember and honour them. Photographs thus became symbols of mortality which encouraged reflection on the meaning and fleetingness of life…
But unlike a photographic self-portrait, where a human looks at their image (in which they are dead) which reminds them about their physical death in the future, an anterior future of which death is the stake (and the prick of discovery of this equivalence)1 – in postmortem photography the little death and the actual death are as one for the anterior future can never be viewed by the subject of the photograph (they are dead), a separation only revived in the heart and mind of another.
Through postmortem photography the deceased live in an interstitial space, forever brought back to life in the eyes of the viewer as we reawaken and reactivate their spirit in the world. I was once here and I am again. Remember me.
Thus the euphemism “sleeping” is appropriate (sleeping beauty awakened once more with a kiss), as the viewer transcends time bringing past dead back into living world – where past, present and future coalesce into single point in time – their death and our death connected through the gaze and the knowledge of our discontinuity. Eons contracted into an eternal moment.2
In this expanded-specific moment in time, through an awareness of our own dis/continuity, what we are doing is talking about something that is remarkable. We are moving towards a language that defines the human condition…
Dr Marcus Bunyan
1/ Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (La Chambre claire), Section 39, 1980
2/ Marcus Bunyan. “This is not my favourite photograph,” part of What makes a great photograph? at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy, Wednesday 5th December 2012 [Online] Cited 27/06/2025
Many thankx to the Biblioteca Panizzi and Michael G. Jacob for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Unknown photographer (American) A sleeping man c. 1846 Daguerreotype Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) A sleeping man (detail) c. 1846 Daguerreotype Title given by the collector
Ricordati di me
Una esposizione dedicata alla collezione di Michael G. Jacob, alla riscoperta della fotografia “post mortem”: la realizzazione di immagini commemorative di familiari defunti per genitori, amici e parenti era un aspetto significativo del lavoro quotidiano di molti studi fotografici vittoriani.
An exhibition dedicated to the collection of Michael G. Jacob, to the rediscovery of “post mortem” photography: the creation of commemorative images of deceased family members for parents, friends and relatives was a significant aspect of the daily work of many Victorian photographic studios.
Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website
Unknown photographer (American) A sleeping girl c. 1846 Daguerreotype Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) A woman with long fingernails, bured teeth & cut flowers c. 1846 Daguerreotype Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) A woman with long fingernails, bured teeth & cut flowers (detail) c. 1846 Daguerreotype Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) Young girl holding a daguerrotype c. 1846 Daguerreotype Title given by the collector
L’esposizione dedicata alla collezione di Michael G. Jacob alla riscoperta della fotografia “post mortem” nell’epoca vittoriana, ha l’intento di illustrare il legame di affezione e rispetto di quella cultura che indusse i vivi a ricordare i propri defunti, analizzando come, dopo gli anni Quaranta del XIX secolo, la fotografia sia diventata centrale anche nel modo di sentire e vivere il lutto.
La pratica di raffigurare il volto del defunto è antichissima e la fotografia si innesta in questa tradizione, modificando il modo di vivere e comunicare il lutto. Come tutte le tradizioni più o meno radicate, anche nella colta ed evoluta Europa le esequie e il lutto seguono consuetudini e usanze che si sono perdute o modificate nel tempo. Il galateo del lutto, in epoca vittoriana, è uno degli aspetti per noi meno comprensibili ma più affascinanti, i cui codici, nel tempo, sono andati perduti o si sono radicalmente trasformati.
I rituali funebri, così come venivano concepiti dai vittoriani, si manifestavano in comportamenti, abbigliamento e usanze che spesso appaiono eccessivi per la sensibilità moderna e hanno oggi bisogno di essere decodificati per comprenderne la vasta iconografia. L’antropologia e la sociologia ci hanno spiegato quali reazioni emotive e formali l’essere umano ha avuto nel corso del tempo di fronte alla morte e al corpo dei defunti, indotte dalla cultura a cui apparteniamo, mentre la fotografia contribuisce sostanzialmente a documentare questa cultura del lutto.
The exhibition dedicated to the Michael G. Jacob collection and the rediscovery of “post mortem” photography in the Victorian era, aims to illustrate the bond of affection and respect of that culture that induced the living to remember their dead, analysing how, after the 1840s, photography also became central to the way of feeling and experiencing mourning.
The practice of depicting the face of the deceased is very ancient and photography is grafted onto this tradition, modifying the way of experiencing and communicating mourning. Like all more or less rooted traditions, even in cultured and evolved Europe, funerals and mourning follow customs and habits that have been lost or modified over time. The etiquette of mourning, in the Victorian era, is one of the aspects that is least comprehensible to us but most fascinating, whose codes, over time, have been lost or have radically transformed.
Funeral rituals, as conceived by the Victorians, manifested themselves in behaviors, clothing and customs that often seem excessive for modern sensibilities and today need to be decoded to understand their vast iconography. Anthropology and sociology have explained to us what emotional and formal reactions human beings have had over time in front of death and the body of the deceased, induced by the culture to which we belong, while photography contributes substantially to documenting this culture of mourning.
Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website
Unknown photographer (American) A mother, daughter and dead infant c. 1848 Daguerreotype retouched in colour Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) A family group 1853 Daguerreotype Date in handwritten characters on the lower edge of the daguerreotype: “July 15 1853” Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) A family group (detail) 1853 Daguerreotype Date in handwritten characters on the lower edge of the daguerreotype: “July 15 1853” Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) Sleeping baby c. 1860 Ambrotype Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) Sleeping baby (detail) c. 1860 Ambrotype Title given by the collector
Unknown photographer (American) A Sleeping child c. 1860 Ferrotype Title given by the collector
Attraverso la luce
In occasione di Fotografia Europea, la Biblioteca Panizzi propone una mostra dedicata ai primi 20 anni della fotografia nelle collezioni della Fototeca attraverso l’esposizione di fotografie su carta salata, albumine, e dagherrotipi, tra cui la prestigiosa collezione di Michael G. Jacob.
On the occasion of Fotografia Europea, the Panizzi Library presents an exhibition dedicated to the first 20 years of photography in the collections of the Photo Library through the display of photographs on salted paper, albumen, and daguerreotypes, including the prestigious collection of Michael G. Jacob.
Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website
John Brown Portrait of a Young Man c. 1848 3 Daguerreotypes
John Brown Portrait of a Young Man c. 1848 Daguerreotype
John Brown Portrait of a Young Man c. 1848 Daguerreotype
John Brown Portrait of a Young Man c. 1848 Daguerreotype
La mostra presenta un percorso attraverso rari esempi di fotografie su carta salata e numerosi dagherrotipi, ambrotipi, ferrotipi e album delle collezioni della Fototeca della Bibliotecca Panizzi. Una narrazione, quindi, che ci portera indietro nel tempo, agli anni pionieristici della sperimentazione sceintifica attraverso la luce, la chimica e la trasformazione di materiali quali l’argento, per arrivare ali’arte del ritratto e del paesaggio e giungere a quel’oggetto di culto che e stata la fotografia delle origini.
The exhibition presents a journey through rare examples of photographs on salted paper and numerous daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, ferrotypes and albums from the collections of the Photo Library of the Panizzi Library. A narrative, therefore, that will take us back in time, to the pioneering years of scientific experimentation through light, chemistry and the transformation of materials such as silver, to arrive at the art of portraiture and landscape and reach that cult object that was the photography of the origins.
Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website
Unknown photographer (American) Dead child in his mother’s arms c. 1850 Daguerreotype
Unknown photographer (American) Girl holding a flower c. 1850 Daguerreotype
Unknown photographer (American) Freckled girl with daguerreotype c. 1850 Daguerreotype retouched in colour
Unknown photographer (American) Tinted woman c. 1850 Daguerreotype retouched in colour
Unknown photographer (American) Portrait of mother with child c. 1850 Daguerreotype
La magia della luce è stata per secoli oggetto di importanti studi scientifici, ma ha affascinato anche e soprattutto il mondo dell’arte, oltre che la cultura popolare. La fotografia, attraverso i vari procedimenti storici, si inserisce in questo capitolo della storia visuale, intrecciandosi con arte, scienza e tecnologia, unite alla passione comune per la nascita di un nuovo e accattivante linguaggio. La mostra presenta un percorso attraverso gli esemplari che appartengono alla collezione di Michael G. Jacob, ultima acquisita grazie alla generosa donazione di questo importante collezionista e studioso, insieme a rari esempi di fotografie su carta salata e numerosi dagherrotipi, ambrotipi, ferrotipi e album delle collezioni della Fototeca della Biblioteca Panizzi. Una narrazione, quindi, che ci porterà indietro nel tempo, agli anni pionieristici della sperimentazione scientifica attraverso la luce, la chimica e la trasformazione di materiali quali l’argento, per arrivare all’arte del ritratto e del paesaggio e giungere a quell’oggetto di culto che è stata la fotografia delle origini.
The magic of light has been the subject of important scientific studies for centuries, but it has also fascinated the world of art, as well as popular culture. Photography, through its various historical processes, fits into this chapter of visual history, intertwining with art, science and technology, combined with a shared passion for the birth of a new and captivating language. The exhibition presents a journey through the specimens that belong to the collection of Michael G. Jacob, the last acquired thanks to the generous donation of this important collector and scholar, together with rare examples of photographs on salted paper and numerous daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, ferrotypes and albums from the collections of the Photo Library of the Panizzi Library. A narrative, therefore, that will take us back in time, to the pioneering years of scientific experimentation through light, chemistry and the transformation of materials such as silver, to arrive at the art of portraiture and landscape and reach that cult object that was early photography.
Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website
Unknown photographer (American) Coach in park c. 1860 Ambrotype
Unknown photographer (American) Portrait of women c. 1860 Ferrotype
Unknown photographer (American) Double vignette friends c. 1860 Ferrotype
Unknown photographer (American) Well dressed lady c. 1880 Ambrotype
Biblioteca Panizzi Via Luigi Carlo Farini, 3, 42121 Reggio Emilia RE, Italy
Curators: Dennis Bell, founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation, and De Kwok, Head of Public Programming
*PLEASE NOTE: THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART PHOTOGRAPHS OF MALE NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN*
George Dureau (American, 1930-2014) Untitled Nd Vintage silver gelatin print
Celebrations of the Human Spirit
~ Honesty
~ ~ Integrity
~ ~ ~ Dignity
~ ~ ~ ~ Vulnerability
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Respect
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Love
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Friendship
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Sexuality
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Strength
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Beauty
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Form
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Humanism
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Identity
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Personality
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Presence
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Intimacy
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Nude
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Empathy
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Revelation
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Spirit
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Truth
I’ve been wanting to do a posting on the magnificent New Orleans photographer George Dureau’s work for a long while but because there are so few exhibitions of his photographs I have never had the opportunity – until now.
It’s a great pity that his work is not as recognised as that of his contemporaries, Peter Hujar and Robert Mapplethorpe. Indeed, you can still pick up an original Dureau in the secondhand art market for around $500 whereas Mapplethorpe’s photographs run into the many thousands.
His photographs are not romantic, certainly not sentimental. He was fascinated by the people he photographed, their truth. These are the stories he conceptualised, posed, lit and photographed, stories that emerged from his imagination, that revealed surprising things about his subjects.
Unlike the clinical formalism of Mapplethorpe, Dureau worked with a poetry that was always present. Indeed, there is something so eloquent and sincere about his photographs for in them the artist draws (Dureau was also a painter) the mysteries of the soul of his subjects.
Dureau’s response to the world and the photographs that emanate from that engagement are humanist in the best sense of the word, revealing his subjects in a direct way that emphasises an individual’s dignity, worth and capacity for self-realisation.
Thus, I feel his photographs are a celebration not just of the human form but more importantly, of the human spirit.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Dennis Bell, Corbin Crable and the Bob Mizer Foundation for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“I live a warm, involved humanist sort of life. There are lots of people passing through it. I have exciting experiences and learn things about people. They always go into my art. I cannot have an experience and it not go into my art.”
 George Dureau
John H. Lawrence, HNOC emeritus director of museum programs and himself a fine-art photographer, said Dureau’s portraits reveal a tangible intimacy between photographer and subject.
“George respected the people he asked to sit for him,” said Lawrence. “I don’t say that from a knowledge, just from what the photographs show. The direct stare into the camera, it may have been at George’s direction. Even with the gaze directed in that fashion, you don’t get the kind of quality you see in these portraits unless there is a mutual respect between the photographer and the subject. There is a vibe there that is based on these two people having respect for each other as the photograph is made.”
John H. Lawrence quoted in Dave Walker. “The Intimate Eye of George Dureau,” on The Historic New Orleans Collection website, December 31, 2021 [Online] Cited 20/06/2025
This exhibition presents 25 evocative black-and-white portraits by George Dureau, capturing the resilience and vulnerability of his subjects – from athletes to marginalised individuals – against the vibrant cultural backdrop of New Orleans, where beauty and humanity converge in transformative ways.
Installation view of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco showing Dureau’s photograph Craig Blanchette, 1992
Installation views of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco showing Dureau’s photograph John Slate, Nd
Installation view of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco
Installation views of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco
The Bob Mizer Foundation proudly presents Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form, an exhibition showcasing 25 evocative black-and-white portraits by the acclaimed New Orleans artist George Dureau. This compelling collection captures the resilience, vulnerability, and individuality of Dureau’s subjects, spanning athletes, performers, and marginalised individuals.
Dureau’s photography transcends traditional portraiture, blending classical composition with the rich cultural spirit of New Orleans. His intimate works explore themes of identity and dignity, transforming vulnerabilities into powerful symbols of humanity’s resilience. The photographs invite viewers to reimagine beauty as inclusive, diverse, and multifaceted.
“George Dureau’s work is a testament to his unique ability to celebrate the human form while challenging societal norms,” says Den Bell, founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation. “His portraits honour the individuality of his subjects while weaving in the vibrancy of New Orleans, making his work timeless and deeply impactful.”
“Dureau photographed people with kindness and sympathy,” added Mizer Foundation’s Head of Programming, De Kwok, “It has been said that his subject matter became a member of his extended family and you can clearly see that in the way his camera lovingly captured them.”
The exhibition will be on view from March 6 to June 28, 2025, at the Bob Mizer Foundation’s Main Gallery. An opening reception will be held on March 6 from 6.00 pm – 8.30 pm, providing an opportunity to explore the works and celebrate Dureau’s extraordinary legacy.
About George Dureau
A celebrated figure in the art world, George Dureau (1930-2014) was renowned for his black-and-white photography and classical paintings. Rooted in the rich cultural heritage of New Orleans, Dureau’s art challenges conventions and highlights the resilience of the human spirit. His work has been exhibited internationally and continues to inspire audiences with its profound emotional depth and technical mastery.
Text from the Bob Mizer Foundation website
George Dureau (American, 1930-2014) Wilbert with Hook Nd Vintage silver gelatin print 20 x 16 inches
This exhibition highlights the remarkable artistry of George Dureau through 25 compelling black-and-white portraits that showcase his unique vision. Created during the 1970s and 1980s, these photographs transcend traditional boundaries, blending classical composition with an unflinching exploration of the human experience. Dureau’s subjects – athletes, performers, friends, and individuals often marginalised by society – are elevated to iconic status through his lens.
The images reveal a profound empathy and an unshakable belief in the inherent dignity of every individual. With a studio rooted in the vibrant cultural milieu of New Orleans, Dureau captured not only the physical form but also the spirit of his subjects, transforming their vulnerabilities into striking symbols of resilience and humanity. His work redefines beauty as inclusive and multifaceted, challenging societal norms and inviting reflection on identity, strength, and community.
This exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form presents 25 photographs by one of New Orleans’ most celebrated artists. Dureau’s black-and-white portraits, taken primarily during the 1970s and 1980s, capture the raw beauty, strength, and vulnerability of his subjects. Known for his classical approach and profound empathy, Dureau’s work invites us to confront traditional notions of beauty, body, and identity while celebrating the richness of the human experience.
George Dureau’s intimate portraits are both timeless and grounded in the rich cultural tapestry of New Orleans. His subjects include athletes, performers, friends, and marginalised individuals – including amputees and people with disabilities – rendered with dignity and compassion. Through his lens, Dureau elevates these figures to monumental status, echoing the grandeur of classical sculpture and Renaissance painting. His compositions emphasize the interplay of light and shadow, underscoring the sculptural quality of the human form.
One cannot discuss Dureau’s photography without acknowledging his connection to the city of New Orleans. His studio in the French Quarter became a space of artistic exploration, where he cultivated a dynamic and diverse community. This exhibition captures the spirit of that time and place, highlighting the distinct cultural influences that informed his work. The city’s unique blend of European, African, and Creole traditions provided a fertile ground for Dureau’s creativity, inspiring him to blend the classical and contemporary, the local and the universal.
Dureau’s photographs are celebrated not only for their technical mastery but also for their emotional depth. His subjects often meet the camera’s gaze directly, creating a sense of intimacy and trust. This rapport between artist and subject is palpable, revealing layers of vulnerability and strength. By choosing subjects who were often overlooked or marginalised, Dureau challenges societal norms and compels viewers to reconsider preconceived notions of worth and beauty.
This exhibition also explores the parallels between Dureau’s work and that of his contemporary, Robert Mapplethorpe. While the two artists shared a fascination with the human form and the dramatic use of black-and-white photography, their approaches diverged in significant ways. Dureau’s images are imbued with warmth and humanity that reflect his deep connection to his subjects. Unlike Mapplethorpe, who often sought a polished and idealised aesthetic, Dureau embraced imperfection and individuality, resulting in portraits that are as soulful as they are striking.
Among the works on display are several of Dureau’s most iconic images. Craig Blanchette, 1992 (above) captures a young man with a disarming gaze, his body framed in chiaroscuro that highlights his muscular form and absence of legs. The image challenges the viewer to see beyond the physical difference, emphasising Craig’s confidence and vitality. Similarly, Roosevelt Singleton features a subject with dwarfism, his ethereal presence heightened by the soft, diffused light. These works exemplify Dureau’s ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, presenting his subjects as both individuals and archetypes.
Dureau’s artistry extends beyond the purely visual. His photographs resonate with themes of resilience, identity, and community. They ask us to confront the complexities of human existence and to celebrate the diversity of the human condition. By placing marginalised individuals at the forefront of his work, Dureau not only elevates their stories but also reflects the universal truths of vulnerability and strength that connect us all.
This exhibition offers viewers the opportunity to engage with Dureau’s legacy in a deeply personal way. Each photograph serves as a testament to the power of art to reveal the unseen, to challenge the status quo, and to inspire empathy. Through his lens, Dureau reminds us that every individual – regardless of their physical appearance or societal status – possesses inherent dignity and beauty.
The 31 photographs selected for this show represent the breadth and depth of Dureau’s oeuvre. From tender portraits of friends to bold explorations of the male nude, the images on display capture the full spectrum of his artistic vision. Each piece is a study in contrasts: light and shadow, strength and vulnerability, individuality and universality. Together, they form a cohesive narrative that celebrates the complexity of the human experience.
George Dureau’s work has left an indelible mark on the world of photography and beyond. His ability to see and celebrate the humanity in every subject has cemented his place as a true visionary. This exhibition, Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form, invites you to step into his world – a world where beauty is redefined, where differences are celebrated, and where the human spirit shines through in every frame.
As you explore these images, consider the stories they tell and the questions they pose. How do we define beauty? What does it mean to see and be seen? And how can art challenge us to look beyond the surface and connect with the essence of another human being? In celebrating the life and work of George Dureau, we celebrate the power of art to transform, to inspire, and to unite us all.
While I haven’t physically seen this exhibition – according to Rijksmuseum “the Netherlands’ first major survey exhibition of American photography… the first comprehensive survey of American photography in Europe … reflect[ing] the rich and multifaceted history of photography in the United States. The exhibition presents the country as seen through the eyes of American photographers, and shows how the medium has permeated every aspect of our lives: in art, news, advertising and everyday life” – you can glean a lot about an exhibition from the installation photographs.
The feeling I get from the installation photographs is of a particularly meagre offering – gallery halls with minimal photographs, huge empty spaces (just look at the installation photograph Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s below) – and to then consider this is supposed to be “the first comprehensive survey of American photography in Europe” and reflect the large photographic holdings of the Rijksmuseum. Really? You wouldn’t really know it from looking at “the show”.
Perhaps the problem stems from the rationale of the exhibition:
“There is no hierarchy to the selection. A sequence of rooms present numerous fields – portraiture, landscape, advertising work, art photography – like chapters in a novel. “We tried to find surprising images and things we’ve never seen before,” says Boom. The result is a broad mix, shaped with co-curator Hans Rooseboom, of anonymous photography, commercial work, news coverage, medical prints and propaganda, presented in tandem with masterpieces such as Robert Frank’s enigmatic picture of a woman watching a New Jersey parade in 1955, her face partially obscured by an unfurled Stars and Stripes.”1 (see below)
The phrase “a broad mix” says it all: a mishmash of anonymous photography, commercial work, fine art photography, the political power of photography, photographs on racism, war, etc., … taking on too much in one exhibition (the American landscape is largely absent from the walls), proclaiming to be a comprehensive survey of American photography. An impossible task.
“The exhibition has deliberately departed from a “top 100” approach, Rooseboom [one of the curators] adds, stating “that would have been too easy”.”2
Easy to say (and move away from) but not easy to do…
What I feel is lacking in this subjective selection (all exhibitions are subjective) is the focused “energy” present in American photography radiating from the wall – the energy that documents and imagines the growth of a nation and the passion of the artists that capture that energy.
Where is, for example, the passion of Sally Mann’s photographs of the American South, the New York buildings of Berenice Abbott, George Dureau’s portraits of friends and amputees in New Orleans, the narrative stories of Duane Michals or the darkness / otherness that has always been present from the very start in American photography. In the selection in the posting, the photographs of Robert Frank (a foreigner, whose photographs of America were reviled when they were first published) and Nan Goldin (photographs of counter culture America) come closest to this alternate perspective, both outsiders from the main stream point of view.
Thus, while there are some interesting photographs in the exhibition it’s all too ho hum for me, perhaps a “vapour” of something almost brought into consciousness.
Many thankx to the Rijksmuseum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing at right photographs by Robert Frank (below) Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp
Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019) City fathers – Hoboken, New Jersey 1955 Gelatin silver print
Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019) Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey 1955 Gelatin silver print
Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019) U.S. 91, Leaving Blackfoot, Idaho 1956 Gelatin silver print
Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019) New York City 1955 Gelatin silver print
Rijksmuseum moves you to The American Dream. To the real American. To unexpected recognition. The Rijksmuseum is staging the Netherlands’ first major survey exhibition of American photography.
The more than 200 works on display in American Photography reflect the rich and multifaceted history of photography in the United States. The exhibition presents the country as seen through the eyes of American photographers, and shows how the medium has permeated every aspect of our lives: in art, news, advertising and everyday life.
Over the past decades the Rijksmuseum has been assembling a collection of American photographic work. This is the first time we are exhibiting photographs from the collection, alongside loaned works from American, Dutch and other European collections. This show includes iconic photographs by the likes of Sally Mann, Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Nan Goldin, Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol, Paul Strand, Diane Arbus and James Van Der Zee, as well as surprising images by unknown and anonymous photographers.
Text from the Rijksmuseum website
Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing in the bottom image at left, Sally Mann’s Jessie #34 (2004, below); at second left, Chuck Close’s Phil [Photo Maquette of Philip Glass] (1969, below); and at third right, László Moholy-Nagy’s Parking lot in Chicago, 1938 (1938, below) Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp
Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) Jessie #34 2004 Gelatin Silver enlargement print from 8 x 10 in. collodion wet-plate negative, with Soluvar matte varnish mixed with diatomaceous earth
László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946) Parking lot in Chicago, 1938 1938 Gelatin silver photograph 23.8 × 33.8cm
Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing the work of Nan Goldin from The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (below) Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp
Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953) Cookie with Me After Being Hit at the SPE Conference, Baltimore, MD, 1986 1986
Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953) Cookie and Vittorio’s Wedding: The Ring, NYC, 1986 1986
Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953) Cookie in the Bathroom at Hawaii 5.0, NYC, 1986 1986
The Rijksmuseum presents the first comprehensive survey of American photography in Europe. With more than 200 works spanning three centuries, American Photography will be an exploration of the rich and multifaceted history of photography in the United States, showing how the medium has permeated every aspect of our lives: in art, news, advertising and everyday life.
Over the past decade, the Rijksmuseum has built an extensive collection of American Photography. This exhibition is the first ever presentation of Rijksmuseum’s collection, which will be shown together with loans from over 30 collections in the United States, the Netherlands and other European countries. Works by icons including Sally Mann, Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Nan Goldin, Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol, Paul Strand, Diane Arbus and James Van Der Zee will be on view alongside eye-opening photographs by unknown and anonymous photographers.
The exhibition is possible by Rijksmuseum’s major partnership with Baker McKenzie. American Photography runs from 7 February to 9 June 2025. Concurrently with American Photography, Carrie Mae Weems’s 2021 series Painting the Town will be on show in the Rijksmuseum’s photography gallery.
American Photography will give picture of the country through the eyes of American photographers, showing the country in all its complexity. The exhibition takes themes such as the American dream, landscapes and portraiture to trace how photographers increasingly reflected on changes and events in their country. A major topic of the show is photography’s evolution as an art form, from 19th-century daguerreotypes of frost flowers on a window to the work of Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler, Sally Mann, Irving Penn, Dawoud Bey and Sarah Sense. Another important theme is how photography has grown to be a part of everyday life, which is demonstrated by family portraits, advertisements, postcards, gramophone record covers and more.
Press release from Rijksmuseum
Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing in the bottom photograph at right, Jocelyn Lee’s Julia in Greenery (2005, below) Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp
Jocelyn Lee (American, b. 1962) Julia in Greenery 2005 Archival Pigment Print 20 × 24 in | 50.8 × 61cm
Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing in the display case, Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s (below) Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp
Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s Wood, handwoven cigarette packets, gelatin silver prints 140 x 110 x 195 mm Collection of Daile Kaplan, Pop Photographica, New York Photo: Andy Romer Photography, New York
Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing at left, Diane Arbus’ A young man in curlers at home on West 20th St., N.Y.C. 1966 (1966, below); and at second left, Ming Smith’s America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City (1976, below) Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp
Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971) A young man in curlers at home on West 20th St., N.Y.C. 1966 1966 Gelatin silver print
Ming Smith (American, b. 1951) America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City 1976 Gelatin silver print 318 x 470 mm Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (VA) Adolph D. and Wiliams C. Williams Fund
In the post-war years, mass immigration to the US brought new ways of thinking. the US took over from Europe as a cultural trendsetter, and photography was eventually accepted as an art form. Playful approaches to photography emerged, moving beyond documenting people and places to provoking emotion and inviting deep questions. Ming Smith’s America Seen Through Stars and Stripes (1976), created on the bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence, turns again to the flag inviting America to reflect on its history. By placing a figure in mirrored sunglasses in front of a shop window, she creates a disorientating mesh of reflective surfaces. The grid structure suggests incarceration but – in combination with the round glasses and the stars on the flag – also creates an abstract composition reminiscent of modern art. “She’s a careful observer, playing with all these layers in the image,” says Boom.
Smith explores the artistic potential of photography, experimenting with double-exposure, shutter speed and collage. In one version of this image, she paints on bold red stripes, altering this snapshot of the US with marks that resemble blood or flames. Smith’s work builds on the civil rights movement that preceded it and features activists such as James Baldwin and Alvin Ailey. She was the first woman to join the African-American photography collective the Kamoinge Workshop and the first black woman to have her work acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Yet her demographic was largely overlooked by the art world. “I worked to capture black culture, the richness, the love. That was my incentive,” she told the Financial Times in 2019. “It wasn’t like I was going to make money from it, or fame – not even love, because there were no shows.”
Henry Fitz Jnr (American, 1808-1863) Self-portrait 1840 Daguerreotype Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington (DC)
In 1840, using a self-made copper plate, Henry Fitz Jnr produced one of the world’s first selfies, his eyes gently closed to prevent any blinking from spoiling the result. In creating this striking blue image, he was doing more than record his appearance; he was also documenting America’s first essays into an art form that would tell its story in radical new ways.
Thomas Martin Easterly (American, 1809-1882) Chief Keokuk (Watchful Fox) 1847 Daguerreotype Missouri History Museum
Anonymous photographer View of a wooden house or barn with a man and a woman in front c. 1870-1875 Tintype 164 x 215 mm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
A 19th-Century tintype (an image made on a sheet of metal) featuring a man and woman in front of a rustic barn is a case in point. The image was probably sold on the spot by a travelling tin typist “for a modest price”, explains Rooseboom. “Many people had just arrived and were living in the countryside, no big city nearby, so this was the only possibility of having your portrait taken.” The man stands proud, looking at the camera, but the woman’s head is bowed and she is looking away. “Sometimes you can sense that people were simply not used to being photographed,” says Rooseboom. “Nowadays, we’ve seen in magazines and movies how to pose elegantly.” This may be the only time in their whole life that they would be photographed, and the result, adds Boom, “would hang on the wall of the house where they lived forever”.
Detroit Photographic Company Home of Rip Van Nd Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Bertha E. Jaques (American, 1863-1941) Tree – in Governor Gleghorn’s Place Honolulu 1908 Cyanotype 248 x 152 mm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie
Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) (photographer) (mentioned on object) A free country? This is America … Keep it Free! Nd Sheldon-Claire Company
United News Company (publisher) 12,000 Employees of the Ford Motor Company, Detroit, Mich. 1913 Postcard, relief halftone and colour lithography 88 × 137 mm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
… a 1913 postcard featuring 12,000 employees of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit may have been the “most expensive picture that was ever taken”, quipped a newspaper at the time, as the factory had to shut down for two hours to assemble the staff. The image, the company boasted, was “the largest specially posed group picture ever made” and illustrates a turning point where industry saw the value in investing large sums in promotional photography. Taken in the year when Ford introduced America’s first moving assembly line and the US had become the world’s largest economy, the photograph also depicts the mass production that would shape the country.
The image’s reappearance in Ford marketing also made it an early example of photoshopping. While the same tinted faces swarmed in the foreground, the number of employees cited in the caption increased exponentially, and a building to the left was cropped out in one version and acquired extra floors in another. “Apparently, many photographers and their publishers had no qualms about abandoning their medium’s potential for realism,” write Boom and Rooseboom in the exhibition catalogue.
Schadde Brothers Studio Display, sample or trade catalogue photograph for sweet manufacturer Brandle & Smith Co., c. 1915 Gelatin silver print with applied colour 288 x 240 mm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965) Nude #3 1918-1919 Gelatin silver print 127 × 171 mm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
… the New York portrait photographer James Van Der Zee was also embellishing his work, drawing jewellery on to his subjects and retouching their faces to erase dark lines and wrinkles. “I put my heart and soul into them and tried to see that every picture was better looking than the person,” he said. As a black photographer working from his Harlem studio at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, his work records a period when black migrants fleeing the segregationist South were forging a new life for themselves in the urban North. For the first time, African Americans and other minority groups could be photographed by someone inside their community, and represented in a way that uplifted them. Van Der Zee’s Portrait of an Unknown Man (1938), for example, is carefully posed to suggest confidence. The outfit is elegant and the buttonhole daisy adds a dandyish flourish. It’s an image that reflects the aspirations and upward mobility of African-American people and the pride Van Der Zee had in his culture.
Hy Hirsh (American, 1911-1961) Untitled (abstraction) c. 1950 Chromogenic print, 251 x 200 mm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie
Anonymous photographer Family Standing beside their Car c. 1957-1960 Chromogenic print (Kodak Instamatic) 76 x 76 mm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (American, b. 1954) This is not a commercial, this is my homeland 1998 Platinum lambda print 476 x 609 mm Courtesy of the artist
The political power of photography is also seen in the work of Native American (Seminole-Muscogee-Navajo) photographer Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie who uses the camera to correct misconceptions about Indigenous populations and to offer an alternative viewpoint on US history. “No longer is the camera held by an outsider looking in, the camera is held with brown hands opening familiar worlds,” she writes in a 1993 essay. “We document ourselves with a humanising eye, we create new visions with ease, and we can turn the camera and show how we see you.”
Tsinhnahjinnie’s captioning of a touristic image of Monument Valley, Arizona with This is not a commercial, this is my homeland highlights the commodification of American land, and uses what she calls “photographic sovereignty” to take us back to the very beginning and reclaim and retell the story of America. In combination with works such as Bryan Schutmaat’s Tonopah, Nevada (2012), which documents mining’s effect on the landscape of the American West, images like Tsinhnahjinnie’s tell a story of a beautiful land that means different things to different people: financial gain, security or a sacred space.
Bryan Schutmaat (American, b. 1983) Tonopah, Nevada 2012 Inkjet print 1017 x 1277 mm (printed 2021) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie
Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1838 or 1839-1890) (Lai Afong / Afong Studio) Interior of a Flower Boat c. 1870 Albumen silver print
A Monday posting!
It is a privilege to be able to publish these beautiful photographs together with installation photographs of the exhibition.
The synthesis of light, perspective and feeling for subject matter is superb. Just look at John Thomson’s River Reeds (c. 1870, below) or Lai Fong’s View in Garden (c. 1870, below), both are which are virtuoso examples of the art of early photography.
The older I get the more attuned I become to these early photographs, a moment in time captured forever in perfect tonality, synchronous to the opening guitar solo of the Adagio of Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra.
Many thankx to the curator Stacey Lambrow for sending me the media images and installation photographs, the latter allowing us to understand the structure and layout of the exhibition. It is very much appreciated.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Installation views of the exhibition Sun and Silver: Early Photographs of China by Lai Fong and John Thomson at the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection, New York
The Loewentheil Photography of China Collection presents Sun and Silver: Early Photographs of China by Lai Fong and John Thomson curated by Stacey Lambrow. This exhibition brings together masterpieces by two giants of 19th-century photography of China. Lai Fong and John Thomson originated many of the most significant developments in the early art of photography in China. This show reveals the intricate and fascinating relationship between the works of the most famous early Chinese photographer and those of his leading foreign contemporary. The two photographers crossed paths, competed for patrons, and had a meaningful influence on one another and the art of photography.
This major exhibition gives viewers the opportunity to compare and contrast Lai Fong’s expressive artistry and technical ingenuity alongside Thomson’s stylistic virtuosity.
Sun and Silver: Early Photographs of China by Lai Fong and John Thomson spans the careers of both artists through the finest examples of vintage prints, all dating to the 1860s and 1870s. It also presents works by other 19th-century photography studios in China that share the themes and subjects of Lai Fong’s and Thomson’s photographs. The exhibition suggests new ways of looking at the origins of photography in China.
This exhibition of works by Lai Fong and John Thomson presents a tiny sliver of the holdings of the Loewentheil Collection, the most important collection of early China photographs in the world.
Text from the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection website
Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1838 or 1839-1890) (Lai Afong / Afong Studio) Cliffs View c. 1870 Albumen silver print
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) Yuen Fu Rapids c. 1870 From Foochow and the River Min Carbon print
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) Buddhist Monks c. 1870 Albumen silver print
Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1838 or 1839–1890) (Lai Afong / Afong Studio) Spirit Way Nanjing c. 1870 Albumen silver print
Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1838 or 1839-1890) (Lai Afong / Afong Studio) Mountain View c. 1870 Albumen silver print
Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1838 or 1839–1890) (Lai Afong / Afong Studio) Portrait of a Naval Officer c. 1870 Albumen silver print
Ye Chung (Yi chang studio) Portrait of Buddhist Nuns c. 1870 Albumen silver print
LAI FONG AND AFONG STUDIO (c. 1839-1890)
Lai Fong, also known by his trade name Afong, was the leading Chinese photographer of the nineteenth century. His career appears to have started around 1859, and by the 1870s he was the most successful Chinese photographer. A gifted businessman as well as a skilled artist, he developed both a Chinese and foreign cosmopolitan clientele. Lai Afong advertised in English-language newspapers – offering a “Larger, and more complete collection of Views than any other Establishment in the Empire of China” – and the artist captioned much of his work in both Chinese and English. Lai Fong’s talent and reputation secured him photographic sessions with distinguished men and women and everyday citizens of nineteenth-century China. The artist also took striking photographs of Chinese landscapes, cities, landmarks, and architecture.Â
The Afong studio survived its founder’s death in 1890 and continued to flourish selling prints from negatives made by Lai Fong and his studio decades earlier. Lai Fong’s son Lai Yuet-chen and his daughter in law Cheung Yuen Ming ran the Hong Kong studio until sometime in the 1940s. Thus the studio that Lai Fong established became one of the most prosperous and longest standing photography studios in China.
LAI FONG and AFONG STUDIO
Lai Fong holds a distinguished position in the history of nineteenth-century photography for the exceptional body of work he created in China. He took more photographs in more places than any other Chinese photographer, traveling widely throughout the 1870s and 1880s. Expansive in the range of views and subjects he captured, and sensitive as an artist, Lai Fong created photographs that continue to resonate with viewers today. His photographs, distinguished by their aesthetic rigor, were made with painstaking care and superior proficiency in photographic chemistry. Within decades of the invention of photography, Lai Fong had mastered the new art form and produced some of the most accomplished early photographs of China ever created.
John Thomson, dismissive of some Chinese and European photographers, offered high praise of Lai Fong, remarking that the photographer had “exquisite taste.” Thomson conferred on Lai Fong a privileged status among his colleagues and competitors: “Judging from his portfolios of photographs, he must be an ardent admirer of the beautiful in nature; for some of his pictures, besides being extremely well executed, are remarkable for their artistic choice of position.” Lai Fong’s talent as a photographer of exceptional artistic ability and vision was publicly recognised as was his expertise as a gifted technician of the new photographic process.
Lai Fong played a fundamental role in defining the aesthetic and technical standards of Chinese photography in the late Qing dynasty. His immense catalogue of photographs is an unrivaled visual compendium of art, architecture, nature, and life in China. It is among the most important bodies of work in the history of photography of China.
JOHN THOMSON (1837-1921)
John Thomson is one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century photography of China. He was one of the first European photographers to travel to Asia. Thomson established a photography studio in Hong Kong in 1868 and made photographic journeys throughout China, venturing up the Min and Yangtze rivers. Thomson introduced the beauty of inland China to the world through his photographic prints and his highly acclaimed photographically illustrated books. Thomson’s magnum opus is his photographically illustrated work Foochow and the River Min (1873), which survives in only eight known sets. Thomson’s photographs are prized for his unconventional approach to composition and his ability to convey his great appreciation for Chinese people, culture, and art in the late Qing dynasty.
When Thomson returned to London from his photographic journeys, the publication of the monthly magazine Street Life in London (1876-1877) containing his poignant photographs of the working class and poor cemented his reputation as an important artist. He is considered an early photojournalist. Thomson was elected a member of the Royal Photographic Society in 1879 and was appointed photographer to the British royal family by Queen Victoria in 1881.
FUJIAN PROVINCE
The stunning scenery of around Fuzhou (Foochow) captured the imaginations of Lai Fong and John Thomson. Lai Fong made the first known photographic expedition there in 1869. His photographs in and around the treaty port of Fuzhou in Fujian province include splendid views of the mountains and valleys of Wuyishan. The views, evoking the scenery in China’s venerated tradition of ink paintings, capture the region’s rock formations, crags, cliff faces, and stone ledges that fascinated literati for centuries.
John Thomson likely saw Lai Fong’s dramatic photographs of the region after he arrived in China. Printed studio labels reveal that Afong studio was located at No. 54 Queen’s Road and Thomson’s studio was nearby at No. 29 Queen’s Road in Hong Kong.
Thomson soon followed in the Chinese photographer’s footsteps by traveling to Fuzhou in 1870. Thomson introduced the beauty of inland China to the West through his photographic prints and his pioneering and highly acclaimed photographically illustrated books. Thomson brought to his photography a rare combination of visual virtuosity and keen intellectual curiosity. Thomson’s photographs are prized for their intrinsic qualities – the great beauty of their imagery, their acute sense of immediacy and their unconventional compositions. Thomson’s scenes on the River Min foreshadow many of the innovations of twentieth century photography. As an artist Thomson is celebrated for his unconventional approach to composition, his appreciation of Chinese pictorial traditions, and his ability to convey his great respect for Chinese people and culture through his lens.
Thomson’s Fuzhou photographs were published in his magnum opus, Foochow and the River Min, the greatest of all Chinese photographic works. An artistic triumph, Foochow and the River Min was extremely expensive to produce, and as a result few copies were published. Only eight examples survive. The Loewentheil Collection copy is perhaps the finest extant.
THEMES IN EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY
The Chinese had a long-established tradition of genre painting. The arrival of photography in China threatened the livelihoods of some of the artists working in this tradition. Some of the painters became photographers themselves, while others worked as colourists for established photographers. These artists brought Chinese techniques, symbolism, motifs, and sensibilities to their work in photography. Early European photographers, in turn brought their own conventions of genre photography when they came to China. Lai Fong, John Thomson, and other early Chinese and foreign photography studios offered images of Chinese tradespeople and photographs of Chinese ‘types’ reflecting the diverse people and trades of China.
Chinese and foreign photography studios presented these works in ways reflecting their distinctive traditions.
PORTRAITURE IN CHINA
Lai Fong’s portraits are among the most important of the late Qing dynasty. After 150 years, viewers continue to sense the sitter’s inner thoughts, feelings, personality, and even their response to being photographed. Posing for the camera was a formal event for most people in the nineteenth century. Lai Fong was able to collaborate with his Chinese clients to create portraits that at times presented an idealized self. Through the position and gaze of his sitters, their clothing, and the use of symbolic props, Lai Fong conveyed the dignity and character of his sitters. Similarly, John Thomson’s respect for the Chinese people he encountered is evident in his sympathetic and sensitive portraits.
Most late Qing dynasty photographs of Chinese women were created by Chinese photography studios which were culturally sensitive to the needs of their sitters. Appreciation for these portraits of women requires an understanding of the strong influence of traditional Chinese visual culture. Lai Fong’s portraits of women are often rich with Chinese symbolism for beauty, longevity, joy, longing, and love expressed through props such as chrysanthemums and peonies, and folding and round fans. As numerous Chinese art historians and scholars note, Chinese photographers including Lai Fong refashioned compositions, motifs, and tropes from traditional Chinese paintings as they created photographic studio portraits. The art historian Yi Gu observes that all twelve Chinese words for photography in the first decades after its invention were preexisting terms for portrait painting.
Lai Fong and Thomson made significant portraits of the diverse people of late Qing dynasty China, from portraits of princes of the late Qing dynasty and high-ranking government officials to women and children, and others living humble lives in remote rural villages.
The camera’s ability to create an accurate depiction of a human being, together with its power to reveal and touch human emotions, enchanted the Chinese imagination. While contending with the demands of the highly technical wet-plate collodion process, Lai Fong and Thomson created portraits that are haunting and intimate, direct and visceral.
RETOUCHING
Lai Fong was an innovator in his manipulation of negatives for artistic effect. In the present photograph Lai Fong used a composite negative to add dramatic clouds to an 1863 negative by Dutton & Michaels. Enhancing the original negative by adding painted clouds to a glass plate presented technical challenges while giving scope for the photographer’s imagination and artistry. The French photographic artist Gustave Le Gray is considered the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century in part because of the way he used these techniques to create mood and atmosphere through the addition of clouds.
Lai Fong was not just an accomplished artist but also an astute businessman. Like many contemporaries in China and in the West, Afong Studio used the work of other photographers in building its portfolio. The studio’s photographs include images taken by photographers such as John Thomson, Dutton & Michaels, and Milton Miller. Rather than removing or covering the other photographer’s credit, as was usual, Lai Fong usually retained the studio markings of others. Once Lai Fong travelled to important sites and made his own superior views, he often discontinued his use of negatives by other photographers.
In his essay “Hong-kong Photographers,” published in 1872 in the British Journal of Photography, Thomson explained that the relationship between photography and painting was particularly strong for Chinese photographers. Thomson stated that there was something about the complicated chemistry and “nicety of manipulation” in the darkroom that “suits the Chinese mind.” Thomson acknowledged Lai Fong’s “exquisite taste” and understood Chinese artist’s deep connection with traditional Chinese painting was revealed in his photographic prints.
Wall text from the exhibition from the Loewentheil Photography of China Collection
Lai Fong (Chinese, c. 1838 or 1839–1890) (Lai Afong / Afong Studio) View in Garden c. 1870 Albumen silver print
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) River Reeds c. 1870 from Foochow and the River Min Carbon print
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) The Island Pagoda c. 1870 From Foochow and the River Min Carbon print
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) Exterior of a Flower Boat c. 1870 Albumen silver print
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) Foochow Ladies c. 1870 From Foochow and the River Min Carbon print
John Thomson (Scottish, 1837-1921) Portrait of a Woman c. 1870 Albumen silver print
Loewentheil Photography of China Collection 10 West 18th Street 7th Floor
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I love Bauhaus design and photographs of the Bauhaus School and these are excellent photographs of both by Lucia Moholy: powerful, graphic, minimalist, modernist, echoing the ethos of the school itself. The strong portraits are pretty damn good as well…
It’s interesting to note then that Moholy was not particularly enamoured of this new modernist vision: “From her diaries, we know that Moholy didn’t like living in Dessau and her photos of the school, which are very alluring, also hint at her despair and dislike of being there.”
Then to learn that Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School, “had taken the negatives with him when he emigrated to the USA via London leading to years of negotiation with lawyers to get the negatives back.”
Why would you take the negatives of another artist, use them without credit and then refuse to give them back for many years without lawyers being involved? It’s incredible what human beings especially males will do (power and control), all because Gropius found the images useful for him to use! (see below)
While it is wonderful to be able to publish the first posting on Art Blart on the artist, I wish galleries and museums would stop making claims such as, Moholy “was one of the 20th century’s most internationally recognised and important female photographers.”
Let’s be frank: she wasn’t, not anywhere close.
Even in Europe in the 1930s we think of Florence Henri, Germaine Krull, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Ilse Bing, Edith Tudor-Hart, Dora Maar etc etc… without even considering American female photographers of the era, or indeed the rest of the century. Today, many have more significance in the history of photography than Lucia Moholy ever will have.
This is in no way denigrating her work at all which I like tremendously, but just to assert that statements not thought through by marketing and media departments may come back to bite you on the arse.
Best just to say that Lucia Moholy was an accomplished artist who made focused, thoughtful, beautiful photographs of an era now nearly a century past. What more do you need to say.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Fotostiftung Schweiz for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“In 1938, while Moholy lived in London, Walter Gropius used about fifty of Moholy’s images from the Bauhaus years – from her negatives that he still had in his possession – in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibition and the accompanying catalogue, without giving her any credit. …
Gropius had been using her photographs without crediting her. She repeatedly reached out to Gropius to reclaim her images and he would continuously protest. Moholy resorted to hiring a lawyer to retrieve her work.
Some relevant letters between Walter Gropius and Lucia Moholy are displayed on the website 99% Invisible. Moholy stated, “These negatives are irreplaceable documents which could be extremely useful, now more than ever” to which Gropius replied, “[…] long years ago in Berlin, you gave all these negatives to me. You will imagine that these photographs are extremely useful to me and that I have continuously made use of them; so I hope you will not deprive me of them.” Lucia Moholy responded, “Surely you did not expect me to delay my departure in order to draw up a formal contract stipulating date and conditions of return? No formal agreement could have carried more weight than our friendship. It is a friendship I have always relied on, and which, also, I am now invoking.“
Moholy did not get physical possession of her original material until 1957, but even then she only could recover a portion of them, 230 out of the 560 Bauhaus-era negatives she took, while 330 negatives, according to Moholy’s own card catalogue, are still missing.”
Anonymous. “Lucia Moholy,” on the Wikipedia website [Onloine] Cited 30/05/2025
Lucia Moholy (1894-1989) was one of the 20th century’s most internationally recognised and important female photographers. Her architectural photographs and portraits from her years at the Bauhaus in Dessau, which have become icons of photographic history, still shape how that institution is perceived today. However, Moholy was not just a photographer, but also an art historian, critic, writer and archivist; she described herself as a ‘documentalist’ and made a name for herself in the field of information science.
The exhibition Lucia Moholy – Exposures is the first to show the broad scope of her work from the 1910s to the 1970s. Her photographic oeuvre is presented together with numerous documents, some of them newly discovered, which shed light on Moholy’s role in the avant-garde during the interwar period, as well as her youth in Prague, her editorial work in Germany, her activity as a portraitist in London, and her involvement with early microfilm technology in England and Turkey.
Finally, the exhibition also invites visitors to encounter Lucia Moholy in the context of Zurich, where she spent the last thirty years of her life. During that time, she also maintained a relationship with the then fledgling Fotostiftung Schweiz, which today is home to a large collection of her photographs.
“This street view of Gropius’s house in Dessau is glimpsed through a line of birch trees that conjures a feeling of entrapment, almost like prison bars. It reinforces this sense of being fenced in or fenced off – a feature of many of Moholy’s images of the Masters’ Houses, which provided accommodation for Bauhaus teachers.
“The photograph really captures the modernist style of Gropius’s buildings, with the rectilinear geometric shapes and the dark windows inserted into the white facades. While living in Dessau, Moholy’s relationship with Gropius and his wife Isa was amiable and continued to be so when the Gropiuses emigrated to the United States.
“It was only in the 1950s, when she learned how the negatives she left behind in Berlin in 1933 had been used to build the legacy of the school without her knowledge, that the relationship turned sour and she engaged a lawyer to help her recover the images.”
“To me, this photograph of Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus building with a muddy, unpaved road in the foreground shows the messier, dirtier aspects of constructing a new modernist vision. From her diaries, we know that Moholy didn’t like living in Dessau and her photos of the school, which are very alluring, also hint at her despair and dislike of being there.
“Moholy’s photographs documenting the Bauhaus buildings and design objects already appeared – with and without credits – in books at the time, as well as in the popular press. In the 1950s, she discovered that at least 40 of her images were used in the catalogue of the seminal 1938 Bauhaus exhibition held at MoMA in New York.
“It kickstarted a life-long campaign of letter-writing to try to obtain both the possession of her glass negatives from the Bauhaus years and appropriate author credit and compensation for the publication of her images.”
In the exhibition Lucia Moholy – Exposures, Fotostiftung Schweiz is honouring the oeuvre of a versatile 20th-century pioneer. The famous Bauhaus photographs taken by Lucia Moholy (1894-1989) still shape how that institution is seen today. She also left a significant legacy via her work as an art historian, critic, writer and microfilm expert. The exhibition shines a spotlight on this long-underestimated figure, who spent the last 30 years of her life in Zollikon, near Zurich.
Lucia Moholy – Exposures presents, for the first time, the full breadth of her work from the 1910s to the 1970s. Photographs, letters, diaries, publications and microfilms are shown, spread across three exhibition rooms. The focus is on key periods of her life: her youth in Prague, her time at the Bauhaus, her exile in London and her pioneering work on microfilm technology. One point of emphasis is her connection with Zurich and with Fotostiftung Schweiz, which holds many of her images. Works by the contemporary Czech artist and curatorJan Tichy will also be on display. The exhibition is realised in cooperation with Kunsthalle Praha.
Photographer of the Bauhaus
Lucia Moholy left Prague in 1915 to work for various German publishers. In Berlin, she met Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy, whom she married in 1921. Together, they explored new reproduction technologies and the possibilities of the photogram. When Moholy-Nagy was appointed as a master at the Bauhaus, Moholy accompanied him and began to take photographs: Between 1923 and 1928, she documented Bauhaus design objects and Walter Gropius’s famous Dessau buildings. Her clearly composed shots still characterise the visual legacy of that institution to this day. Moholy’s portraits of Bauhaus figures like Anni Albers, Walter Gropius and Florence Henri are particularly impressive, and have been made central to the exhibition.
Exile and a new beginning
In 1928, Lucia Moholy and László Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus and moved to Berlin, where they soon separated. Moholy took charge of the photography class at Johannes Itten’s art school, while simultaneously trying her hand at photojournalism. Her flight from the Nazis in 1933 took her to London. There, she opened a photo studio and wrote the bestseller A Hundred Years of Photography, 1839-1939. After her studio was destroyed by bombing in 1940, she turned to microfilm technology. She founded her own documentation service and set up a microfilm centre in Ankara as a UNESCO expert.
The search for the glass negatives
After the end of the Second World War, Moholy noticed many of her Bauhaus photographs appearing in newly released publications. After extensive research, she eventually learnt that Walter Gropius had taken the negatives with him when he emigrated to the USA via London. It was not until 1957, after years of legal negotiations, that Lucia Moholy was able to get a large number of her negatives back, which are now in the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin.
Late recognition of the photographer
Moholy moved to Zurich in 1959. Here, she wrote about Zurich exhibitions for English magazines and was a prominent figure on the art scene. During the 1970s and 1980s, interest in Moholy’s photographic works finally grew. They were shown in exhibitions and published in magazines. In 1981, a solo exhibition was held in her honour at Gallery Ziegler in Zurich. Four years later, her first monograph was published, with in-depth analysis of her work by art historian Rolf Sachsse. Moreover, two founding members of Fotostiftung Schweiz, Rosellina Burri-Bischof and Walter Binder, maintained contact with Lucia Moholy. Thanks to a purchase and a donation from Moholy’s estate, Fotostiftung Schweiz now holds 146 of her prints, which can be accessed via the Online Image Archive and constitute the largest collection outside the Bauhaus Archive.
Jan Tichy – Weight of Glass
The exhibition at Fotostiftung Schweiz is supplemented with contemporary works by the artist and curator Jan Tichy, who has been engaging with Moholy’s legacy for almost 20 years. His microfilm installation can be seen in the passage leading to the photo library. In addition, contemporary video works, installations and photographs are being shown at oxyd-Kunsträume from the 7th of February to the 2nd of March 2025, including the impressive Installation no. 30 (Lucia), for which Tichy arranges and illuminates 330 glass plates in the size of the original negatives. Set up in a dark room, the installation creates a fleeting and fragile memorial to an important protagonist of the 20th century.
Lucia Moholy – Exposures is a Kunsthalle Praha exhibition project, organised in cooperation with Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, and the Bauhaus Archive, Berlin.
Press release from Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur
“Marianne Brandt is a really important Bauhaus designer who ended up living in East Germany in relative obscurity, although her work is now also receiving due attention. The somewhat static composition of the two objects side by side is dynamised by the diagonals produced by the larger vessel’s slender spout and the decision to slant in the ashtray’s top, emphasizing the use value.
“It also shows how Moholy played with reflective surfaces when photographing metal objects, evoking the work of Florence Henri who was at the Bauhaus at the same time. Henri was known for capturing her own portrait as she played with glass and metal in her photographs.
“We can also occasionally catch a glimpse of Moholy in some of her metal studies. But in other instances, she focuses on highlighting the lustrous quality of the objects in isolation. These images of metal objects are perhaps the best-known of her Bauhaus product photographs. But she also took pictures of pieces made from ceramics or wood that indicate the evolution of design thinking at the school.”
“Henri’s sophisticated, avante-garde, sculptural compositions have an almost ‘being there’ presence: a structured awareness of a way of looking at the world, a world in which the artist questions reality. She confronts the borders of an empirical reality (captured by a machine, the camera) through collage and mirrors, in order to take a leap of faith towards some form of transcendence of the real. Here she confronts the limitless freedom of creativity, of composition, to go beyond objectivity and science, to experience Existenz (Jaspers) – the realm of authentic being.*
These photographs are her experience of being in the world, of Henri observing the breath of being – the breath of herself, the breath of the objects and a meditation on those objects. There is a stillness here, an eloquence of construction and observation that goes beyond the mortal life of the thing itself. That is how these photographs seem to me to live in the world. I may be completely wrong, I probably am completely wrong – but that is how these images feel to me: a view, a perspective, the artist as prospector searching for a new way of authentically living in the world.”
Marcus Bunyan commenting on the exhibition Florence Henri. Compositions at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, March – September 2014
![Heinrich Riebesehl (German, 1938-2010) 'Menschen Im Fahrstuhl, 20.11.1969' [People in the Elevator, 20.11.1969] 1969 from the exhibition 'Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany' at Fondazione Prada, Milan, April - July, 2025](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/2-typologien_heinrich-riebesehl_siae_sm.jpg "Heinrich Riebesehl (German, 1938-2010) 'Menschen Im Fahrstuhl, 20.11.1969' [People in the Elevator, 20.11.1969] 1969 from the exhibition 'Typologien: Photography in 20th-century Germany' at Fondazione Prada, Milan, April - July, 2025")
![Heinrich Riebesehl (German, 1938-2010) 'Menschen Im Fahrstuhl, 20.11.1969' [People in the Elevator, 20.11.1969] 1969](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/1-typologien_heinrich-riebesehl_siae_sm.jpg "Heinrich Riebesehl (German, 1938-2010) 'Menschen Im Fahrstuhl, 20.11.1969' [People in the Elevator, 20.11.1969] 1969")
![Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015) 'Eichenblatt [Oak Leaf]' 1965](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/8-typologien_hilla-becher_sm.jpg "Hilla Becher (German, 1934-2015) 'Eichenblatt [Oak Leaf]' 1965")
![Karl Blossfeldt (German, 1865-1932) 'Adiantum pedatum, haarfarn, junge, noch eingerollte Wedel' [Maidenhair fern, young, still curled fronds] Nd](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/5-typologien_karl-blossfeldt_sm.jpg "Karl Blossfeldt (German, 1865-1932) 'Adiantum pedatum, haarfarn, junge, noch eingerollte Wedel' [Maidenhair fern, young, still curled fronds] Nd")
![August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Sekretärin beim Westdeutschen Rundfunk in Köln' [Secretary at West German Radio in Cologne] 1931-1950s](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/6-typologien_august-sander_siae_sm.jpg "August Sander (German, 1876-1964) 'Sekretärin beim Westdeutschen Rundfunk in Köln' [Secretary at West German Radio in Cologne] 1931-1950s")
![Erich Sander for August Sander's studio. 'Politischer Häftling' [Political Prisoner] 1941-1944 (print date late 1940s)](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/7-typologien_august-sander_siae_sm.jpg "Erich Sander for August Sander's studio. 'Politischer Häftling' [Political Prisoner] 1941-1944 (print date late 1940s)")
![Ursula Böhmer (German, b. 1965) 'Highland Grampians / Scotland [All Ladies – Cows in Europe]' 2011](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/21-typologien_ursula-bohmer_sm.jpg "Ursula Böhmer (German, b. 1965) 'Highland Grampians / Scotland [All Ladies – Cows in Europe]' 2011")
![Lotte Jacobi (American born Poland, 1896-1990) 'Folkwang-Auriga-Verlag, Orch 152. Neottia nidus avis. Vogel-Nestwurz, einzelne Blüte' [Bird's-nest orchid, single flower] c. 1930](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/4-typologien_lotte-jacobi_sm.jpg "Lotte Jacobi (American born Poland, 1896-1990) 'Folkwang-Auriga-Verlag, Orch 152. Neottia nidus avis. Vogel-Nestwurz, einzelne Blüte' [Bird's-nest orchid, single flower] c. 1930")
![Chuck Close (American, 1940-2021) 'Phil' [Photo Maquette of Philip Glass] 1969](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/chuck-close-photo-maquette-of-philip-glass.jpg "Chuck Close (American, 1940-2021) 'Phil' [Photo Maquette of Philip Glass] 1969")
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