MUNICH.- In the years 1927–1935, Albert Renger-Patzsch, one of the most important photographers of the New Objectivity school, took a comprehensive series of photographs in the Ruhr area depicting the outskirts of towns, landscapes of spoil pits, country roads, backyards and suburban houses, allotments and coal mines. The result is the only body of work by Renger-Patzsch that was not commissioned. With reserved emotionality and clear compositions, the photographs mark a significant position in the landscape genre that was, for instance, seldom found in painting at that time.

Now this group of Ruhr landscapes, taken from the collection of the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation, is being presented to the public for the first time. The comprehensive exhibition includes 83 photographs from the Ruhr series, accompanied by documents and archival materials illustrating other commissioned works and publications by Renger-Patzsch from around this time.

Renger-Patzsch printed many of the images in large format (30 x 40 cm) on exquisite chamois paper. He probably planned to exhibit or publish the material in the late 1930s, but this plan was never realized. About twenty of these outstanding large-format prints, as well as over a hundred small-format images from the series, are now held in the Albert Renger Patzsch Archive of the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Foundation in the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. The archive was compiled as part of Ann and Jürgen Wilde’s intensive collecting activities and research work from the early 1970s on. It hosts a unique collection of original photographs, exhibition prints and negatives, as well as documents and materials by and about Albert Renger-Patzsch.

The series of Ruhr landscapes is a masterpiece of modernist industrial and landscape photography. The influence of the series persists into contemporary photography, for example in the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher and their students. Now, around 80 years after they were taken, Albert Renger-Patzsch’s Ruhr photographs are more relevant than ever; they serve as a visual commentary on current discussions related to urbanity, urban sprawl and the rehabilitation of post-mining landscapes.

Exhibition curator: Dr. Simone Förster, curator of Stiftung Ann und Jürgen Wilde, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

The exhibition is accompanied by a magazine published in German and English, containing around 60 pages and 45 illustrations, with a foreword by Bernhard Maaz, text by Simone Förster, and an interview with Ann and Jürgen Wilde.