| | | | | | | | | © Liselotte Strelow, Hildegard Knef, 1963 - Courtesy Johanna Breede | | | | | | BILDERGESCHICHTEN | | | | 11 September – 31 October, 2019 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Liselotte Strelow, 'Gottfried Benn', 1955 - Courtesy Johanna Breede | | | | | | "The most entertaining surface on earth is that of the human face." (Georg Christoph Lichtenberg)
On September 11, Liselotte Strelow would celebrate her 111th birthday - enough to commemorate her photographic work, the image of a photographer who is one of the most important and most accomplished representatives of German portraiture and theater photography of the 20th century. Her camera was the meeting point of many interesting faces and personalities. The result was an extensive picture gallery - today also a part of contemporary history of the 20th century. The protagonists of the fine arts, literature, theater or even greats of the political scene as well as representatives of industry and economy - all of them can be found in the portrait archive of Liselotte Strelow: Gottfried Benn, Jean Cocteau, Peggy Guggenheim, Theodor Heuss, Hildegard Knef , Oskar Kokoschka, Thomas Mann, Gerhard Marcks, Helen Weigel - just to name a few. | | | | | | | | | | © Liselotte Strelow, 'Henry Moore', 1955 - Courtesy Johanna Breede | | | | | | | In all these portraits Liselotte Strelow transmits in all her subjectivity, an essential quality of author photography. Her portraits are governed by a human image that undermines all stereotypes and defies the customization of humans in the photographic image. The human face alone is the bearer of expression, it is a reflection of human experience, of human destiny. Lived life is reflected in her photographic images. Without any adornments, unfussy, unadorned and soberly photographed, it brings out the individual features without any beautification, profiled by simple objectivity. The viewer's gaze focuses directly on the landscape of the depicted face. It is the Bauhaus idea that consistently accompanies her time as a photographer: nothing distracts from the essential, as she herself writes in her, unfortunately, unpublished memoirs. With the strong black-and-white contrasts that are so typical of her photography, she models the portrayed as well as plastic images - it is the attempt to reach a third dimension. She staged in a theatrical chiaroscuro contrast, reminiscent of the Max Reinhardt stage in Berlin in the 1920s and early 1930s and the expressionist theater. | | | | | | | | | | © Liselotte Strelow, 'Marlene Dietrich', 1960 - Courtesy Johanna Breede | | | | | | | Here, in the work of the portrait photographer, the theater photographer Liselotte Strelow comes to life, who started her education at the Lettehaus and continued in 1932 at the Kurfürstendamm, with the Jewish children and opera photographer Suse Byk. Both Berlin institutions, which had a lifelong influence on her photography. | | | | | | | | | | © Liselotte Strelow, 'Konrad Adenauer', 1963 - Courtesy Johanna Breede | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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© 9 Sep 2019 photo-index UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
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