Photographs 1932 – 1938 from the Gerd Sander Collection
Fotografien 1932 – 1938 aus der Sammlung Gerd Sander
Elfriede Stegemeyer / elde steeg.
Photographs 1932 – 1938 from the Gerd Sander Collection
Exhibition: April 13 - July 06, 2024
Opening: Friday, April 12, 6-9 p.m.
"Elfriede Stegemeyer / elde steeg. Photographs 1932 - 1938 from the Gerd Sander Collection", continues the series of exhibitions focused on the collection of the galerist and collector, Gerd Sander.
Elfriede Stegemeyer (1908 - 1988) is one of many female representatives of the photographic avant-garde active during the Weimar Republic. The fact that her name is less well known today than that of other photographers of the style Neues Sehen (New Photography), even within photographic circles, is due to the political circumstances of the time in which she produced the majority of her photographic work.
In 1932, the twenty-four-year-old Stegemeyer discovers photography. Her early photographic work is inspired by the spirit of modernism. In the newly established photography class at the Kölner Werkschulen (Cologne Trade School), she quickly learned the technical basics of working with the camera. From the start she makes confident and imaginative use of the creative methods of Neues Sehen (New Vision) and Neu Objektive Photographie (New Objective Photography). Radical top and bottom views, close-ups, strong contrasts and tightly framed image cropping which abstract the subject, as well as rhythmically structured compositions, are part of her creative repertoire. Stegemeyer experiments with camera-less techniques in the darkroom creating photograms and photo-montages, with which she later creates collages. The new photography of the 1930s has an unmistakable influence on her work.
Stegemeyer cultivated close contacts with the artists group known as the Cologne Progressives. Later she explicitly pointed out the importance of the abstract, geometric compositions of Franz Wilhelm Seiwert and Otto Freundlich for her work. Her sometimes fantastical montages, also contain surrealist echoes.
Unfortunately Stegemeyer has little opportunity to present her experimental photographic images to the public. It is shortly before the National Socialists seize power, after which they forbid all forms of experimental art. After 1938, Stegemeyer stops photographing altogether. In 1943 she loses almost all of her possessions in a bombing raid on Berlin. Most of her artistic work is lost as a consequence.
After the war she does not continue her photographic work due to a lack of money, choosing to concentrate on other media - painting, drawing and graphic art. Elfriede Stegemeyer adopts the pseudonym "elde steeg", under which she works for the remainder of her lifetime.
The selection of circa 60 works - photographs, photograms, photo collages and montages in this exhibition conveys the joy of experimentation and diversity while at the same time showing the stringency that guided Stegemeyer during her short six year exploration of the photographic medium. It was Gerd Sander who introduced her photographic work to the world in his New York gallery in the early 1980s. His eye for extraordinary art is validated, as almost all works in this exhibition were shown in Elfriede Stegemeyer’s first museum exhibition in 1999 at the Kunsthalle Bremen.
A catalog will be available to accompany the exhibition.
Elfriede Stegemeyer / elde steeg.
Fotografien 1932 – 1938 aus der Sammlung Gerd Sander
Ausstellung: 13. April bis 6. Juli 2024
Eröffnung: Freitag, 12. April, 18-21 Uhr
Mit der Ausstellung "Elfriede Stegemeyer / elde steeg. Fotografien 1932 – 1938 aus der Sammlung Gerd Sander" setzt die Galerie Julian Sander ihre Ausstellungsreihe fort, in deren Rahmen bedeutende Werkgruppen aus dem umfangreichen Nachlass des Galeristen und Sammlers Gerd Sander gezeigt werden.
Elfriede Stegemeyer (1908 - 1988) gehört zu den – nicht wenigen weiblichen – Vertreterinnen der fotografischen Avantgarde, die in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik tätig waren. Dass ihr Name heute, auch in Fotofachkreisen weit weniger bekannt ist als der anderer Fotografinnen dieser Zeit ist den damaligen politischen Verhältnissen geschuldet, in denen sie den Hauptteil ihres fotografischen Werkes geschaffen hat.
Im Jahr 1932 entdeckt die vierundzwanzigjährige Elfriede Stegemeyer die Fotografie. Ihre frühe Fotografische Arbeit ist inspiriert vom Geist des Modernismus. In der an den Kölner Werkschulen neu eingerichteten Klasse für Fotografie erlernt sie schnell die technisch-handwerklichen Grundlagen der Arbeit mit der Kamera und bedient sich von Beginn an souverän und voller Einfallsreichtum der Gestaltungsweisen des
