Erich Salomon (1886-1944) is incontestably one of the most important photographers of the 20th century. During his lifetime, the doctor of law and polyglot gentleman who was accepted by great personalities from the fields of politics, culture and society as one of themselves, was exceptionally successful as a photojournalist. In 1928, the son of an upper class Jewish Berlin family became famous overnight as a star reporter of the firm Ullstein when his first, secretly taken court reportages became known. Shortly afterwards he took pictures such as had never been seen before of the world of political conferences. Unlike most of his colleagues, Salomon was on friendly terms with several great personalities on the international stage (for example Gustav Stresemann, Aristide Briand and Wilhelm Furtwängler), which enabled him to report on them from an unusually close perspective. The end of this brilliant and work-filled life is therefore all the more incomprehensible: after 1933, Salomon settled in Holland where, following the German invasion, he tried unsuccessfully to hide. In 1944, he and his wife and younger son were murdered in Auschwitz.
C'est en 1928, à l'âge de 42 ans, qu'Erich Salomon débute sa carrière de photographe professionnel. Fils d'un riche banquier berlinois, docteur en droit, il appartient à la haute société allemande qu'il dépeint en mettant à profit l'usage d'appareils photographiques modernes et discrets - Ermanox et Leica.
Introduit dans les cercles les plus fermés - salons mondains, cours de justice ou conférences internationales -, Erich Salomon photographie les personnalités et les célébrités de l'époque avec leur complaisance ou sans qu'elles aient véritablement conscience de sa présence. En dévoilant la face cachée du portrait officiel et posé, il donne naissance au photojournalisme mod...
With the current exhibition the "bad boys" of photography are the subject of an extensive show for the first time in Germany. Paparazzi photography is an aggressive form of photojournalism, particularly today when the famous names in show business are hunted down and pushed into dangerous situations for the sake of getting the most interesting picture possible. In the 1960's and 1970's, the "classic" era of the paparazzi, the combination of voyeurism and exhibitionism, whereby photographers lie in wait for the stars to make their public appearance, was less strident and loud. Inventiveness, speed and persistence, along with a touch of cheekiness--put to use at the Cannes Film Festival, or on the Via Veneto in Rome--was usually enough to guarantee good results.
The exhibition "Pigozzi and the Pap...
With tail coat and lens through politics and society
Up till now, exhibitions and publications on Erich Salomon have been organised according to historical and thematic concepts. Salomon was regarded as a historian of the international society around 1930. In Janos Frecot's exhibition, Erich Salomon's work will now be shown in the light of its compositional and conceptual characteristics, and it becomes clear that Salomon's new visual themes, and above all his new visual typology, had a profound influence on the visual vocabulary of press photography.
The exhibition is the result of co-operation between the Berlinische Galerie and the Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst, Fotografie und Architektur, in collaboration with the Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur. Curator: Ja...