Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Born in 1902 in D sseldorf as Otto Maximilian Umbehr, UMBO is considered the inventor of the image of the New Woman, the new image of the street, and photographic report-age per se. UMBO was a young artist plagued by self-doubt who became famous as a photog-rapher almost overnight and hence participated in all -important avant-garde exhibitions of his time, and who, according to the narrative, lived through National Socialism as an "anti," and whose Berlin studio and archive was completely destroyed by bombs in 1943. This publi-cation, which presents a selection of 200 works and numerous -documents, is essentially based on UMBO's estate. More than 600 photographs and extensive source material form the background. And yet, the question of how this photographer related to the complex histories of his time can only be answered rather vaguely; only those early pictures have been preserved that UMBO passed on as his best to friends, or presented to a few collectors. Nevertheless, the -material, -supplemented by selected press releases, yields a highly complex and dazzling artist biography of the 20th century, full of discontinuities, fractures and unanswered questions. Not least, it revolves around the failure of the avant-garde and the -difficulty following their successes after the Second World War. The publication UMBO. -Photographer therefore offers the opportunity to re-examine the many projections associated with the name UMBO, more than two decades after the first retrospective.
Synopsis
UMBO is considered the inventor of the image of the New Woman, the new image of the street, and photographic report-age per se. UMBO was a young artist plagued by self-doubt who became famous as a photog-rapher almost overnight, and hence participated in all -important avant-garde exhibitions of his time. This publi-cation, which presents a selection of 200 works and numerous -documents, is essentially based on UMBO's estate. More than 600 photographs and extensive source material form the background. The -material, -supplemented by selected press releases, yields a highly complex and dazzling artist biography of the 20th century, full of discontinuities, fractures, and unanswered questions. It revolves around the failure of the avant-garde and the -difficulty following their successes after the Second World War. UMBO. -Photographer offers the opportunity to re-examine the many projections associated with the name UMBO, more than two decades after the first retrospective.