A Picture Book: The Photography Collection of the Museum Folkwang

Located in Essen, Germany, and one of today’s leading international art museums, the Museum Folkwang’s renowned photography collection was established in 1979 with nearly 3,000 works by Otto Steinert. Steinert is well known for his enigmatic images, which emphasize light and shadow and are quite prescient in their use of now-common conventions like blurring and multiple exposures. He was the founder of the Fotoform movement of postwar German photographers, who actively reinvigorated the photo techniques of the Bauhaus. The collection has since been expanded with an additional 6,000 images, including work by Helmar Lerski, Germaine Krull and Peter Keetman. A Picture Book presents a survey of the Folkwang collection, organized into eight chapters structured around the ideas of Theme, Period, Method, Medium and Materials. Essayists Reinhard Braun, Wolfgang Bruckle, Clement Cheroux, Florian Ebner, Hans-Jurgen Lechtreck, Jurgen Muller, Christopher Phillips and Klaus Pollmeier contextualize the collection and expand upon the ideas raised by the thematic chapters. Additionally, a thorough history of this unique photography collection is explored by Editor and Director of the museum’s Department of Photography, Ute Eskildsen.