Leica Hall of Fame Award 2024: Herlinde Koelbl

She has long been considered one of the most significant and renowned German photographers: now Herlinde Koelbl is being honoured with the Leica Hall of Fame Award for her lifetime achievements. The ceremony will take place from 9–10^th
October as part of this year’s Celebration of Photography at Leica Headquarters in Wetzlar. The complementary exhibition will be on display at the Leica Gallery Wetzlar up until 19^th January 2025. One of the photographer’s motifs has also been chosen as Leica Picture of the Year.

She is a precise observer, an experienced author, a versatile artist and sensitive chronicler of her times: over the past five decades, German photographer Herlinde Koelbl has created an unequalled, multi-layered body of work. She devotes herself intensively to her subjects, and publishes her long-term studies mostly in book form, supplemented by comprehensive exhibitions. Her first photo book, Das Deutsche Wohnzimmer (The German Living Room) from 1980, was designed as a sociological study, and enjoyed great success. The combination of documentary images with personal statements by the people depicted has become one of the photographer’s trademarks. The impressive Jewish Portraits project, first published in 1989, which she worked on over many years and in which the direct black and white photographs are complemented by long interviews with contemporary witnesses, received much acclaim, and provided an emotional examination of contemporary German history. 

She became best known for her project Traces of Power – The Transformation of People Through Governance in which she observed German politicians over a period of eight years, starting in 1991. Following that, Koelbl portrayed and conducted interviews with Angela Merkel up until 2021. The six pairs of images selected for the exhibition from her Traces of Power – Angela Merkel 1991–2021 series are a clear demonstration of the photographer’s conceptual way of working. Her most important and tried and true strategy is to approach new subjects without prejudice, with curiosity and impartiality, but always well prepared. Whether High Society, Clothes Make the Man, Bedrooms, Hair, Portraits, Writers or Metamorphoses – just to name a few of the projects presented in the current exhibition – Koelbl always succeeds in developing her thematically and stylistically-diverse long-term projects in a fascinating manner, while also sensitising the viewers to socio-political issues. Leica cameras were the favourite tools for many of her series, initially due to the discretion needed; however, even in digital times they have proven to be reliable instruments for capturing the finest nuances. With 47 works from ten series, the exhibition at the Leica Gallery Wetzlar provides insightful glimpses into the photographer’s rich life’s work.

Herlinde Koelbl was born on 31^st October 1939 in Lindau. After first studying fashion, it was in the mid seventies that she discovered photography as her creative medium of expression. She subsequently began to work on assignments for magazines, as well as creating an enormously productive series of publications of her own long-term photographic projects, which were often accompanied by interviews. Some of the projects also resulted in documentary films. Her sensitive and often philosophical interviews appeared regularly in the ZEITmagazin. Her 35mm-range work was primarily carried out with Leica cameras, and her medium format with a Hasselblad. Koelbl has published more than 20 photo books and has received numerous awards, including the Medal of Excellence (1987), the Dr Erich Salomon Prize of the DGPh (2001), the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (2009) and the Bavarian Order of Merit (2013). She lives and works in Neuried near Munich.

Pictures that have touched the world, moments that remain unforgotten: Leica Camera AG has been inducting outstanding photographers into the Leica Hall of Fame since 2011 – artists whose vision of the world has moved something, has changed something. Timeless iconic images that reveal the conditio humana, and have become part of our collective memory, offer testimony to their creativity. Steve McCurry was the first photographer honoured with the Leica Hall of Fame Award in 2011. He was followed by Barbara Klemm, Nick Út, René Burri, Thomas Hoepker and Ara Güler. In 2016, the award was granted to Joel Meyerowitz, in 2017 to Gianni Berengo Gardin; and, in 2018, to Bruce Davidson and Jürgen Schadeberg. In 2019, Walter Vogel was honoured; followed by Ralph Gibson in 2021 and Elliott Erwitt last year. With Herlinde Koelbl, the number of members inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame has risen to 14.

A limited edition of one of Koelbl’s pictures will be on offer exclusively through Leica Galleries. The motif belongs to the photographer’s most recent series, Metamorphoses,
where she traces the beauty of transience in the form of wilting flowers. Since 2021, Leica Camera AG has granted the Leica Picture of the Year recognition to outstanding Leica photographers who have been inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame. Following Ralph Gibson, Thomas Hoepker and Elliott Erwitt in previous years, the 2024 Leica Picture of the Year is by Herlinde Koelbl.

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