Renger-Patzsch – Landschafts- und Architekturphotographien

The industrial architect Fritz Schupp from Essen owned a unique and homogeneous collection of over 100 photographs by Renger-Patzsch. The works, which were mostly created after the Second World War, show finely modelled images of the German low mountain range, a type of landscape that was biographically familiar to the photographer through his life stations between Dresden, Bad Harzburg, Essen and Wamel on Lake Möhne.

Balanced compositions that avoid any kind of detail transform the ground and trees, branches and foliage into ornamental structures that lead the view into the veiled twilight of the forest and the clear expanse of sunny meadow slopes. Although the landscape appears deserted, the traces of its use are visible everywhere. Arable land, plantations and felled wood take the image away from the romantic idyll far removed from civilisation, but are nevertheless impressive by hiding all too gross disturbances. Fences and houses blend harmoniously into the landscape; Castles, churches and palaces stand quietly before the viewer, monumental but never threatening.