SCHMÖLZ und Karl Hugo SCHMÖLZ, Hugo - Cinemas

Background information

"The photographic work of the Cologne architectural photographers Hugo SCHMÖLZ (1879-1938) and Karl Hugo SCHMÖLZ (1917-1986) has received a great deal of recognition over the past few years, which has continued to grow until today. After his apprenticeship as a photographer and numerous other positions, SCHMÖLZ Sr. established himself as an architectural photographer in Cologne from 1911. Later, his son Karl Hugo took over the company. The work of the two photographers, long forgotten, presents itself today as breathtakingly unique in its aesthetics and technical perfection. By inventing a special additive exposure technique, Hugo SCHMÖLZ succeeded in documenting dark interiors at the beginning of the century with an elegance and detail that is still overwhelming today. For years now, the van der Grinten Gallery in Cologne has been working on the work of Hugo and Karl Hugo SCHMÖLZ and the rediscovery of their work, especially on the international photo art market. At the last Paris Photo they showed a widely acclaimed and highly praised exhibition including the photographs shown in this book.

Content

The photographic volume 'Cinemas' brings together for the first time a series of photographs by Hugo SCHMÖLZ and Karl Hugo SCHMÖLZ taken between 1935 and 1957, mainly in the Rhineland and the Ruhr region, of newly built movie theaters. The interiors, now largely destroyed, appear almost sculptural in the photographs modeled by the light, in any case little nostalgic, but strangely removed from time and with their finest shades of gray almost hyperreal." (© Stefan Thull)

About German photographers, Hugo SCHMÖLZ and Karl Hugo SCHMÖLZ

Photo books by and about the work of Hugo SCHMÖLZ

Photo books by and about the work of Karl Hugo SCHMÖLZ