Lothar Wolleh

Lothar Wolleh (born the January 20th, 1930 with Berlin, Germany; deceased the September 28th, 1979 with London, the United Kingdom) was a German photographer. Until the end of the years 1960, Lothar Wolleh worked as advertizing photographer. Then it gave up this marketing activity to concentrate entirely on its work in the field of independent and artistic photography. The topics to which it devoted its life lasting include the three central fields “the artists” , “the work worlds” and “the believer” . Its portraits of painters, sculptors and activists of international repute, among which one counts personalities such as Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Christo, Rene Magritte, Gerhard Richter, Dieter Roth, Jean Tinguely or Günther Uecker, constitute an central element of its work. On the whole, it carried out the portrait de109 artists. In addition to by the portraits, forms central expression, its work is marked by the books of photographs for bibliophiles.

Its life

Lothar Wolleh spent its youths in Germany marked by the war and national-socialisme. From 1946 to 1948, it followed the courses of elementary teaching and figurative painting to the University of applied art of Berlin-Weißensee. Young man, marked wrongly of espionage by the Russian occupant, it was stopped and condemned to fifteen years of forced labors in the mines of Siberia. After six years of captivity in Russia, in the penitentiary camp of Workuta, it could, following the success of the negotiations on the return of the German prisoners of war, to return to Berlin. It followed then, of 1956 to 1957, a formation in Lette-Verein, a school of vocational training of photography, graphic arts and of mode of Berlin. It has taken share with a programme of convalescence of several months worked out by the World Council of Churches intended for young war victims people, which enabled him to accomplish a stay on the island of Gotland, in Sweden, which will be at the base of sound leaning all its life lasting for the men and the landscapes. From 1959 to 1961, he studied in Folkwangschule für Gestaltung (school of design) in Essen where he had as a professor the large German photographer Otto Steinert. As an independent photographer, Wolleh exerted first of all successfully mainly in the field of publicity. Companies re-elected such as Deutsche Bundesbahn or Volkswagen belonged to its customers.

In 1965, Wolleh photographed the council the Vatican II in Rome. It resulted from it, with the participation of the father Emil Schmitz, documentation: “Das Konzil, II Vatikanisches Konzil” (the council. Council of the Vatican II). In 1975, it documented the ceremonies organized at the time of the Holy year and published the two splendid books of photographs color on the two events: Das Konzil (the Council) (1965) and Apostolorum Limina (1975). In 1970, it carried out USSR volume: Der Sowjetstaat und the Seine Menschen (the State Soviet and its men).

On suggestion of his/her friend Günther Uecker, painter and artist German materialist, Wolleh began at the end them years 1960 systematically to photograph painters, sculptors and activists of international repute. These portraits gave place to many great projects of books of photographs among which Nagelbuch with Günther Uecker in 1972, Art Scene Düsseldorf in 1973, the project of Unterwasserbuch (underwater book) in collaboration with Joseph Beuys, “Das Schoonhoven-Buch” (the book of Schoonhoven) (not published) or volume on the group of artists of the “Neue Realisten” (New realistic) (not published). Other projects of volumes of photographs such as the series “Männer der Wirtschaft ” (men of the economy) on the elite of the managers of undertaking in the years 1970 in the Federal Republic of Germany. Between 1977 and 1979, it accomplished several stays in Poland within the framework of its work on volumes of photographs “ Die schwarze Madonna von Tschenstochau ” (the black Madonna of Tschenstochau) and Schloß Wawel (Wawel Castle).

Its work

Lothar Wolleh followed systematically in its work of the creative principles by preserving and carrying out with precision a strictly symmetrical structure for its photographs. Photography in black and white within the framework of a basically square format constitutes another important characteristic of its work. The individual exposure: Lothar Wolleh - Eine Wiederentdeckung: Fotografien 1959 (a) 1979 (Lothar Wolleh - a redécouverte: photographs of 1959 to 1979) will take place until 2007 with passages to Kunsthalle of Bremen, in Stadtmuseum de Hofheim, the Kunstmuseum of Ahlen and Deutschherrenhaus of Coblentz.

List artists portraiturés by Lothar Wolleh

Random links: