ZURICH.- On July 10, 2024, the world-renowned photographer Thomas Hoepker passed away peacefully surrounded by his family. Over the past 10 years, Bildhalle has been closely associated with Thomas Hoepker and has shown his iconic images in several solo exhibitions in Zurich and Amsterdam. This exhibition pays tribute to Hoepker’s œuvre, his life story and his warm-hearted personality with this retrospective.
Born in Munich in 1936, Hoepker ranked among the foremost German photojournalists of the late 20th century. As such, he not only experienced but also played a defining role in the second golden age of photojournalism, after the 1920s and 1930s. He has made photographic history not only for his contributions to magazines such as Stern, Geo, Kristall and the Münchner Illustrierte, but also as art director, writer and filmmaker. Many of his black-and-white photo essays rank among the greatest of photo-journalism.
As a reporter for Stern, he had the opportunity to portray the boxer Muhammad Ali in 1964, continuing to do so at regular intervals for 10 years. In 1966 Hoepker and his then wife, Stern journalist Eva Windmöller, joined the boxing legend in London and Chicago.
In 1970, Hoepker was on hand with his camera when Ali, who had been out of the ring for some time, was preparing himself for the “fight of the century” against Joe Frazier. He met up with him again years later when he was already debilitated by Parkinson’s. Many of these pictures are known worldwide and have become icons of photography. They have been widely exhibited in museums and represented in many collections.
In 1976, Hoepker moved to New York as a correspondent for Stern and, until 1981, he was director of the American edition of GEO. From 1987 to 1989, he worked as the Art Director of Stern in Hamburg. In 1989, he became the first German national to be accepted by Magnum as a full member, going on to become president of the agency from 2003 to 2006. Thomas Hoepker was married to filmmaker Christine Kruchen. Thomas Hoepker was diagnosed with Alzheimer›s in 2017. His dream was to travel the USA one last time, as he did in the early 1960s for his “Heartland” project. A film team accompanied him and his wife Christine, resulting in “Dear Memories”, a visually powerful and touching documentary film about a photographer who has spent a lifetime creating cultural and historical memories and for whom these images now function as a kind of “outsourced” memory.
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