HECKE, Roswitha

About German photographer, Roswitha HECKE (b.1944, in Hamburg)

After her apprenticeship as a photographer, Roswitha HECKE met director Peter Zadek and photographed his productions for years, as well as later those of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and films by Éric Rohmer in Paris. With her unposed images, she explores foreign, often simple milieus and worlds. Some of her photographic cycles deal with people on the margins of society: transvestites, homeless people and prostitutes. Another theme is her exploration of the 'fascination with men' and the expressions of machismo. She has published her pictures in numerous magazines, including Vogue, Twen, Stern, Playboy, Theater heute, Die Zeit and Spiegel. Numerous trips have taken her to all continents, she lived in Morocco for three years and in 2002 she moved to St. Petersburg, where she taught at the Academy of Fine Arts (photography master class). Roswitha HECKE now lives in Hamburg
Her photo book 'Liebes Leben' about the Zurich prostitute Irene was awarded the 'Kodak Prize' for the best photo book in the first edition by Rogner & Bernhard in 1979 and in 1982 in the Rowohlt paperback edition by the Stiftung Buchkunst as one of the 'most beautiful books of the year'.

Photo books by and with works by Roswitha HECKE

• 'Liebes Leben. Bilder mit Irene' (1978, 1982 as Norwegian edition 'Blott til lyst. bilder med Irene', as english edition 1982, 1987, as well as 1993 as Japanese edition); 'Fotografien von Roswitha Hecke' (2004); 'Mann für Mann' (1989); 'Pigalle' (2007); 'Secret Views. Fotografien 1964 bis heute' (2007); 'Irene (2011);

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