|
 Quote:
"The pictures I took spontaneously - with a bliss-like sensation, as
if they had long inhabited my unconscious - were often more powerful
than those I had painstakingly composed. I grasped their magic as in
passing. "
Herbert List was a Magnum Contributor from 1951 to 1975.
Herbert List
German, b. 1903, d. 1975
Herbert List was a classically educated artist who combined a love
of photography with a fascination for surrealism and classicism.
Born into a prosperous Hamburg merchant family, List began an
apprenticeship at a Heidelberg coffee dealer in 1921 while studying
literature and art history at Heidelberg University. During travels
for the coffee business between 1924-28, the young List began to
take photographs, almost without any pretensions to art.
In 1930, though, his artistic leanings and connections to the
European avant-garde brought him together with the photographer
Andreas Feininger, who introduced his new friend to the Rolleiflex,
a more sophisticated camera that allowed a deliberate composition of
images. Under the dual influence of the surrealist movement on the
one hand, and of Bauhaus artists on the other, List photographed
still life and his friends, developing his own style. He has
described his images as "composed visions where [my] arrangements
try to capture the magical essence inhabiting and animating the
world of appearances.”
After leaving Germany in 1936 for political and personal reasons, he
turned his hobby into a profession. Working in Paris and London, he
met George Hoyningen-Huene, who referred him to "Harper's Bazaar".
Dissastisfied with the challenges of fashion photography, List
instead focused on composing still lifes in his studio. The images
produced there would later be compared to the paintings of Max Ernst
and Giorgio de Chirico, and paved the way for List's role as the
most prominent photographer of the Fotografia Metafisica style.
Greece became List's main interest from 1937 to 1939. After his
first visit to the antique temples, sculptures and landscapes, his
first solo show opened in Paris in the summer of 1937. Publications
in "Life", "Photographie", "Verve" and "Harper's Bazaar" followed,
and List began work on his first book, Licht Ueber Hellas, which
wasn't published until 1953. Working in Athens, List hoped to escape
the war but was forced by invading troops to return to Germany in
1941. Because of his Jewish background, he was forbidden to publish
or work officially in Germany. Several works, stored in a hotel in
Paris, have been lost.
Portraits of Berard, Cocteau, Honegger and Picasso during a short
visit to Paris and a series on the Panoptikum in Vienna
characterized List's main work before the war ended in 1945. In
1946, he photographed the ruins of post-war Munich and took the job
of art editor of "HEUTE", an American magazine for the German
public.
In 1951, List met Robert Capa, who convinced him to work as a
contributor to Magnum, but he rarely accepted assignments. He turned
his interest towards Italy from 1950 to 1961, photographing
everything from street scenes to contemplative photo-essays, from
architectural views to portraits of international artists living in
Italy. In 1953, he discovered the 35mm camera and the telephoto
lens. His work became more spontaneous and was influenced by his
Magnum colleague Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Italian Neo-Realism
film movement.
Over the next few years, he completed several books, including Rom,
Caribia, Nigeria and Napoli, this one in collaboration with Vittorio
de Sica.
List more or less gave up photography in the early 1960s. Despite
his earlier fame throughout Europe, his particular style was no
longer fashionable. By the time he died in Munich in 1975, his work
had been almost forgotten. Interest has revived recently, though,
thanks to a fine monograph published by Monacelli Press, which
features 250 of List's photographs divided into five sections:
Metaphysical Photography, Ruins and Fragments, Eros and Photography,
Portraits, and Moments.
Herbert List died in Munich, April 4th 1975.
Exhibitions
2004 Veiled: The Elusive Oeuvre of Herbert List – Stephen Daiter
Gallery, Chicago,
Illinois, USA
2004 Italian Diary: Herbert List – Fahy/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles,
California, USA
2003 Retrospektive: Fotografien Herbert List 1930-1966 – Museum
Sankt Ingbert,
Ingbert, Germany
2003 Die Retrospektive: Herbert List – Museum im Kulturspeicher
Wurzburg, Wurzburg,
Germany
2000/02 Herbert List - Fotomuseum im Munchner Stadtmuseum, Munich,
Germany;
H?tel de Sully, Paris, France; Museum für Angewandte Kunst, K?ln,
Germany;
Fundacio “La Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain; Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe,
Hamburg,
Germany; Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, USA; Museo Alinari,
Florence, Italy;
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
1996 Biblioteca Nazionale, Turin, Italy; Robert Miller Gallery, New
York,
USA; Musee de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland; Italienisches Kultur-Institute,
K?ln, Germany
1995 Fotomuseum im Munchner Stadtmuseum, München, Germany; Palazzo
Bagatti-
Valsecchi, Milano, Italy; Goethe-Institute, Roma and Napoli, Italy;
Palazzo Rucelai,
Firenze, Italy; Galleria Costa, Genoa, Italy; Gerald Peters Gallery,
Santa Fe, USA;
Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, USA; Galleria Photology, Milano,
Italy
1994 Romisch-Germanisches Museum, K?ln, Germany
1993 Glyptothek, München, Germany; Musée National des Monuments
Francais, Paris,
France; PPS Galerie, Hamburg, Germany; Goethe Institute, Athens,
Greece
1992 Galerie Zur Stockeregg, Zürich, Switzerland
1991 Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
1990 Photographic Museum, Helsinki, Finland
1989 Charles Cowles Gallery, New York, USA
1988 Junge Maenner - PPS Galerie, Hamburg, Germany; Fotografie
Forum, Frankfurt
Germany
1986 Pace MacGill Gallery, New York, USA; Olympus Gallery,
Amsterdam,
Netherlands; Palazzo Odeschalchi, Roma, Italy
1985 Chicago Public Library
1983 Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; Galleria
Rondini, Roma,
Italy
1982 Galerie Octant, Paris, France
1981 International Center of Photography, New York, USA;
Photographers’
Gallery, London, UK; Galleria Il Diaframma, Milano, Italy; Palazzo
Odeschalchi,
Roma, Italy
1980 CCD Galerie, Düsseldorf, Germany
1977 Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany; Kunsthaus, Zürich,
Switzerland
1976 Die Neue Sammlung, München, Germany; Museum fur Kunst und
Gewerbe,
Hamburg, Germany; Kunsthalle, Nuremburg, Germany
1958 Galleria del óbelisco, Roma, Italy
1942 Galerie Karl Buchholz, Berlin, Germany
1940 Parnassos Galerie, Athens, Greece
1937 Galerie du Chasseur d’Images, Paris, France
Books
2005 Canti dall'Africa, Artificio Skira, Italy
2000 Herbert List - Die Monographie, Schirmer & Mosel, Germany
(Herbert List - Eloges du Beau), Le Seuil, Paris, France;
1995 Memento 1945 - Münchner Ruinen, Schirmer & Mosel, Germany
1995 Italien, Schirmer & Mosel, Germany; (Diario Italiano),
Mondadori Editore, Italy
1993 Hellas, Schirmer & Mosel, Germany
1988 S?hne des lichts, Hoffmann & Campe, Germany; (Junge M?nner),
Twin Palms, USA
1985 Herbert List, Verlag, Germany
1981 Herbert List: Photographs 1930-1970, Rizzoli, USA/Thames &
Hudson, UK
1977 Portraits, Hoffmann & Campe, Germany
1972 Martin Mayer (with Hans Konrad Roethel), Karl Thiemig, Germany
1963 Bildwerke aus Nigeria (with William Fagg), Prestel, Germany;
(Nigerian Images), Lund Humphries Publishers, UK
1962 Napoli (with Vittorio de Sica), Sigbert Mohn, Germany
1958 Caribia, Rowohlt, Germany
1955 Rom, Hans Reich, Germany
1953 Licht über Hellas: Aufnahmen aus Griechenland 1937-1941, Georg
D.W. Callwey,
Germany |
