Last chance to see: Evelyn Hofer at The Photographers' Gallery
Make sure to visit The Photographers' Gallery's retrospective of the German-American photographer before it closes on Sunday!
September 22, 2023
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
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Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
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Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
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Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
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For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
Despite migrations to Mexico, then New York, Evelyn Hofer remained thoroughly European in her focus. Her early family life was a succession of flights, and always ahead of the curve; first from newly Nazi Germany, then Francoist Spain, and finally, to Mexico, in the early 1940s. In the midst of this, she trained under the German-born Swiss photographer Hans Finsler in Switzerland, a pioneer of the Neue Sachlichkeit - or New Objectivity - movement.
More often, New Objectivity is associated with painting, yet pioneers such as August Sander often applied modernist art theories and aesthetics to the new media, blurring the boundaries between fine and commercial art. Here too, at The Photographers’ Gallery, we first find two chairs, a hint at her interior, intimate focus, and interest in the history of painting. It’s the perfect start for the first UK retrospective of the centuries and geography-spanning artist.
Hofer’s ‘professional’ practice began with her next migration to New York, where she was commissioned to produce commercial photographs for magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Here too, she mingled with artist émigrés Saul Steinberg and Richard Linder, who became life-long friends.
But it is her 1960s photobooks spanning Western and European cities, that let us glimpse into her practice. Unlike the arrogant titles bestowed upon them by their authors and publishers, and typically men - London Perceived or New York Proclaimed - Hofer never pretends to define or homogenise a city. Rather, the artist captures portraits of the people who live and work within it, exercising agency in her ‘illustrations’, and exposes its plural characters - and by default, her own.
The Stones of Florence (1959), Hofer’s first collaborative photobook with novelist and political activist Mary McCarthy, provided the impetus to work in other cities, permitting her to leave behind the restrictions of American studio fashion shoots. Their working relationship wasn’t always smooth; McCarthy wished for something more nostalgic, for the two to be portrayed like ‘Victorian women’ exploring Italy. Perhaps this simply strengthened Hofer’s resolve, and efforts to engage with people and places over long periods of time.
Here, she blurs the boundaries between commercial and journalistic photography. It’s telling that the artist began by taking notes, not photographs, and her subjects get increasingly political into the 1970s. Double-page spreads on British prisons, the Troubles, and Watergate, for the likes of Sunday Times Magazine are taken with great care and dignity - subtle digs against the surrounding tabloid copy. On the photobooks, her name comes second, but in the captions, it’s first, a subtle historical revision by the curators to respect the editorial nature of her work.
A wealth of archive materials accompanies the photographs on the walls, making the curation more diverse and accessible for a less photographic crowd. But otherwise, The Photographers’ Gallery reflects the artist’s own ‘quiet attention to detail’ with typically understated curation. Left bare of individual captions, the works – and their subjects – are allowed to speak wholly for themselves. (More context can be found in audio, by QR code.)
We see how her practice develops over time – and slowly. With her large 4x5 camera, and long exposure practice, she physically stood out from the ‘shoot-by-the-hip’ contemporaries like Robert Frank and William Klein. Her long practice was more reflective; the few images the product of collaboration with her sitters, rather than any sort of self-serving voyeurism. ‘I don’t like to spy on people,’ Hofer said. ‘I respect them, and I want them to respect what we are doing together.’
Respect comes as in the curation too: colour comes in from the 1950s but picks up with Hofer’s powerful deployment of the ‘complex’ colour dye transfer printing process in the 1970s. Again, the time demanded of this process exposes her selective approach; each colour, as each subject, had a reason and purpose. Yet her contemporary reception reflects wider social discriminations, particularly sexism. Often, it was assumed she had mistaken or missed her intended colouring; but she decided to depict a ‘dull’ Ireland, to match the tone of the location.
Transfer printing demands applying layers of dye by hand - ‘it’s in the paper!’, says her gallerist, Susanne Breidenbach – yet another instance of her personal interventions, but also the painterly, sometimes surreal nature of her practice. If Alice Neel - a ‘court painter of the underground’, who also lived in Mexico before New York – ever turned her hand to photographs, perhaps they may have looked something like this.
Evident in her practice is her equal respect for her subjects, whether cockle fishers and coal miners in Wales, or those patrolling the corridors of power in Washington. Her contemporaries and collectors imply she was without prejudice, more likely to describe her subjects by the colour of their clothing than their skin. In the same year, she shoots proud Black ‘Chauffeurs’ and ‘Capitol Police’ together in monochrome, here placed side-by-side; placed in conversation together, their contemporary relevance is self-evident without needing to labour the point, or overinterpret her progressive practice.
Notable too is the interaction between working people and artists, or perhaps how she depicts artists as working people; we find gravediggers in Dublin placed next to the death masks of great artists like James Joyce. There’s Yayoi Kusama and Andy Warhol too, before he was well-known. Most exciting are the works in black-and-white, curated with another in colour, creating a conversation about the contrast in media – but again, the same respect.
Hofer continued to experiment into her older years; in the 1990s, she returned to her enduring passion for Renaissance painting in a still life series inspired by Seventeenth Century Spanish artist, Francisco de Zurbarán. She masters the full effect of due transfer printing, using deep shadow and rich colour to create heavy chiaroscuro, blurring the boundaries between photography and painting, realism and symbolism.
For just two floors, there is so much to see. It’s the sort of exhibition which begs you to sit with the people – subjects and artist. Hilton Kramer, the New York Times art critic, once called her ‘America’s most famous unknown photographer’; but for Hofer, the work was always more important than her reputation. The Photographers’ Gallery, like the artist, hints that we might have both.
