Lothar Wolleh
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Lothar Wolleh (January 20, 1930 – September 28, 1979) was a well-known German photographer.
Until the end of the sixties, Lothar Wolleh worked as a commercial photographer. He took portraits of international contemporary painters, sculptors and performance artists. Altogether, he photographed about 109 artists, including known personalities such as Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Dieter Roth, Jean Tinguely, René Magritte, Günther Uecker, Gerhard Richter and Christo.
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[edit] Life
Lothar Wolleh spent his youth in a Germany stamped by war and Nazism.
In the years from 1946 to 1948 he studied concrete painting in the elementary school class at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Berlin-Weißensee.
As a young man, he was arrested on the suspicion of spying by the Russian occupying forces, and was condemned to fifteen years forced labour and underground mining in Siberia. After serving six years at the Russian punishment camp Vorkuta, he was able to return to Berlin due to successful negotiations concerning German prisoners of war.
After returning from prison, from 1956 to 1957 he obtained an education in the Lette-Verein, a continuation school for photography, design and fashion in Berlin.
He took part in a monthly repeated recovery program of the World Council of Churches for the war-disabled youth. This made it possible for him to visit the Swedish island of Gotland in 1958, which was a motivation for his lifelong strong affinity towards the Swedish culture, landscape and people.
From 1959 to 1961, he studied at the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung in Essen. One of Wolleh's teachers was the German photographer Otto Steinert.
In his first years as a freelance photographer, he was most successful in advertising, recruiting customers such as Deutsche Bundesbahn or Volkswagen.
In 1965, he photographed the Second Vatican Council in Rome. After that, he collaborated with Emil Schmitz to make the documentary Das Konzil. II. Vatikanisches Konzil. In 1975 he photographed the Jubilee, and published the photographic folios Das Konzil (1965) and Apostolorum Limina (1975).
At the request of his friend, the German painter Günther Uecker, at the end of the 1960's Wolleh began to systematically portray more than one hundred international well known painters, sculptors, and Actionsts. Among those photographed were Gerhard Richter, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely.
Out of this project several comprehensive photobook-projects evolved:
- 1970- UdSSR
- 1972- Art Scene Düsseldorf
- 1972- Apostolorum Limina
- 1973- Das Unterwasserbuch (together with Joseph Beuys.)
[edit] Work
Lothar Wolleh has used a very individual style with strict principles in his photowork with mostly symmetrical compositions. Besides he captured a characteric square format for his images; on the whole Wolleh made portrait photos of round about 109 artists.
Until 2007 the comprehensive retrospective Lothar Wolleh – Eine Wiederentdeckung: Fotografien 1959 bis 1979 (Lothar Wolleh - A Rediscovery: Photographs 1959 to 1979) will be shown in Germany at Kunsthalle Bremen, Stadtmuseum Hofheim, Kunstmuseum Ahlen and the Deutschherrenhaus Koblenz.
[edit] List of photographed Artists
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[edit] Gallery
 Herbert Zangs |
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[edit] Publications
- 1965: The Council;: The Second Vatican Council; Chr. Belser Verlag
- 1970: UdSSR. Der Sowjetstaat und seine Menschen.; Chr. Belser Verlag
- 1971: Günther Uecker / Lothar Wolleh: Nagelbuch; Verlag Galerie Der Spiegel, Köln
- 1972: Lothar Wolleh: Art Scene Düsseldorf 1; Chr. Belser Verlag
- 1975: Lothar Wolleh: Apostolorum Limina; Arcade Verlag, Arcade Verlag
- 1978: Günther Uecker: Ludwig van Beethovens Leonore. Idee einer Oper; Belser Verlag
