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F. C. Gundlach – 90 Years In 90 Photos

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F. C. Gundlach – 90 Years In 90 Photos

He is known for his fashion photographs from all over the world – in front of the pyramids of Giza, on the rooftops of Manhattan, in the port of Hamburg. F. C. Gundlach is 90 and in Berlin 90 of his photographs.

On the occasion of his 90. Birthday draws legendary photographer F. C. Gundlach is a very personal balance sheet: with an exhibition at the Contemporary Fine Arts Gallery in Berlin. “F. C. Gundlach – 90 years in 90 photos” is the name of the show, compiled by the Hamburg-based photographer alone – selected from thousands of photo of the last decades work. With ten, he started to photograph. The photographic craft he learned at a private photography school in Kassel.

Gundlach has become, especially for his artistic fashion photography, but also for his experimental Work. Creative and with an artistic eye, he combines fashion, nature and modern architecture in almost graphical snapshots. He is portrayed in radically lit Black-and-White photos of famous faces of movie stars such as Yves Montand, Simone Signoret or Romy Schneider. And he keeps his surroundings in a fairy-tale pictures.

Fashion photography 1960: “Flamingo Man”

Master of elegance

In particular, his fashion photographs of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, provided him with a photographer of international Reputation as well as a German fashion: He was to busy star photographers of the West German fashion scene. The exhibition “90 years, 90 photos” in Berlin invites you to a journey through the fashion world – with detours to Africa, Asia, and North and South America.

To see Works from the 1950s are in Berlin, the Haute Couture of Parisian fashion houses, as well as impressive architecture, natural landscapes and portraits of artists, to Look recorded on different continents.

But the F. C. Gundlach is not only a photographer, but also a gallerist, collector, high school teacher, curator, and founder. He initiated in 1999 in Hamburg triennial of Photography, and was appointed in September 2003 as the founding Director for the “Haus der Photographie” in Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen.

Photography icon: Op-Art-Fashion in front of Cheops pyramid

He was born on the 16. In July of 1926, when Franz Christian Gundlach in a small village in Hessen. His interest in photography was kindled early – already as a child he got his first camera, an Agfa-Box, with a self-timer. “My first photo I made at the age of ten years. In 1936, I got a Box with a seat made of silver as a gift. You could photograph for the first time, a Selfie!”, the famous fashion photographer, told in an Interview.

Life in the war

Two years later, in 1938, he established himself in the bathroom of his parents, a darkroom for developing his photos from behind the shower curtain. As Hitler’s “last stand” had to do with the Amateur photographer in the Second world war military service. Directly after his War school he was employed in 1943 as an air force auxiliary in the Front. In April 1945, he came as a young soldier in an American prisoner of war in a French camp near Nancy. In March 1946 he was transferred then to the prisoner-of-war hospital Göppingen, and shortly afterwards dismissed.

First Photo Coverage

In spite of being a prisoner of war to the budding photographer, his dream job was not to be dissuaded. From 1947 to 1949, he completed a professional training as a photographer at the private educational institution for Modern art, Rolf W. Nehrdich in Kassel. Together with a classmate, he opened in 1948, a private photo Studio.

In the summer of 1949, he worked in the American zone of occupation as a photographer in the film studios in Wiesbaden, Germany, where, at the time, Hollywood stars in and out. In that year he also published his first theatre and film programs in West German magazines such as the “Deutsche illustrierte”, “Quick”, “Film-Revue” and the “star”. From 1953, he specialized in fashion photography in the journalistic style, and began to work for the Hamburg magazine “Film und Frau”.

Always traveling…

His breakthrough, F. C. Gundlach succeeded, finally, in the 1950s and 1960s, with its extraordinary Fashion magazines of movie stars, and his portraits of Artists – among others, he photographed well-known Actresses like Nadja Tiller, Hildegard Knef, but also the French Director Jean-Luc Godard.

F. C. Gundlach lived for a time in France, attracted by the Existentialist scene – “Paris is perhaps the most important city in Europe was, as regards art and atmosphere,” as he later explained in an Interview. Even then, he thrilled us with his photographs from completely different countries and cultures in which he makes his Models pose. His Reporting has led him to the near, Middle and far East and Central and South America. His photographic handwriting is to recognize right off the bat.

In the years 1966 and 1976 F. C. Gundlach founded the company CC (“Creative Color GmbH”) and PPS (the”Professional Photo services”). These companies are Black-and – White and color labs, an Equipment trading, rental studios and Specialist bookshops. The 1976, “Galerie F. C. Gundlach” was one of the first gallery for photography in Germany. In the following two decades, the artist presented more than 100, to be part of pioneering exhibitions.

Working as a Professor and curator

In 1988, he got a reputation as a Professor at the University of the arts in Berlin and started in 1992, his work as a curator for the German and international galleries and museums. And he focused on Collecting photographic works. In 2000, he established the F. C. Gundlach Foundation, the photographer preserves life and always re-issues.

The current exhibition “F. C. Gundlach – 90 years in 90 photos” is from the 2. up to 20. To see August 2016 in the Contemporary Fine Arts gallery in Berlin.

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