Carl Strüwe

Carl Strüwe, born 1898, died in Bielefeld, 1986. Important twentieth-century German photographer.

Trained as a graphic artist, Carl Strüwe was the first photographer who created, between 1926 and 1959, an original artistic oeuvre based on microphotography. His book “Formen des Mikrokosmos – Gestalt und Gestaltung einer Bilderwelt” (Prestel Verlag, München, 1955), with its 96 photographic prints, represents the core of his oeuvre in this field. With his later work from the mid-1950s, Strüwe belonged to the photographic avantgarde of Otto Steinert’s “subjective photography” in W. Germany.

Parallel to this, Carl Strüwe created, between 1924 and 1952, a second group of works: “Hohenstaufen in Italien” with landscapes and cityscapes of S. Italy and Sicily, which he assembled into a publication of the same title bearing 95 photographic prints and an accompanying text (Edition Jesse, Bielefeld, 1986). Moreover, Strüwe produced photographs and paintings of alpine landscapes, drawings and graphic prints, as well as commercial prints and photographs for the Graphische Werke Gundlach in Bielefeld the company to which Strüwe had a lifelong professional association as a graphic artist.

In 1986, Carl Strüwe was awarded the Kulturpreis of the city of Bielefeld for his artistic oeuvre. The art historian J. A. Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth acknowledged Strüwe’s artistic achievements, which have meanwhile been included in important international publications and collections. The main body of his photographic oeuvre, a total of 426 original prints, was donated to Kunsthalle Bielefeld where it has been housed since 1982. The catalogue raisonné (photography) had already been compiled during Strüwe’s lifetime and with his help. It lists a total of about 500 entries.

The remaining estate is kept in the Carl Strüwe Archives where it is professionally administered and researched. Apart from the aforementioned photographs, paintings and graphics of the various groups of works, it consists of numerous literary and professional texts by Carl Strüwe himself and from his library; of documents and testimonials to the life and work of the artist; of his complete correspondence with international publishers, institutes and personalities from the field of photograpy; as well as of archival paraphernalia such as technical equipment, especially the microscope and microslide preparations, which Carl Strüwe used in developing his cosmos.