Famous Photographers

Discover wall art by the most renowned photographers of our century: Dean West stages landscapes and scenes that look realistic yet are too beautiful to be true – somewhere between dream and reality. Patrick Demarchelier created countless cover photos for VOGUE and Harper's Bazaar over the course of his career. The French star photographer stages models and celebrities, which made him one of the most sought-after and best-known fashion photographers in the world.

Nobuyoshi Araki is considered one of Japan's most influential and, at the same time, most controversial photographers. Since the 1960s, the Tokyo native has documented life in all its facets – from the delicate, morbid flower still lifes of his series "Flower" to the provocative imagery of "Kinbaku". Over 500 published books make him one of the most prolific photographers of his generation.

For four decades, Patrick Demarchelier shaped the image of fashion – preferring to shoot handheld rather than on a tripod, to capture the moment between pose and ease. In 1990 he became the first foreign photographer entrusted with an official portrait of the British royal family, portraying Princess Diana with unprecedented intimacy. His covers for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar defined an era.

Candida Höfer, one of the most important students of the renowned "Becher class" at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, is known for her monumental images of interior spaces, in which architecture and atmosphere achieve an impressive balance. Her imagery captures the encounter between a highly acclaimed photographer and places that breathe history and meaning. With photographic precision and poetic clarity, she captures what makes them special – in collector's pieces of rare depth and lasting relevance.

Dean West stages landscapes and scenes that look realistic yet are too beautiful to be true. Inspired by David Hockney and Edward Hopper, the Australian photographer condenses color and light into images of cinematic clarity between reality and fiction. His staged photographs have been exhibited internationally and produced for brands such as Disney and MTV.

At the top of the list of significant photographers stands Andy Warhol. The artist pushed the possibilities of every medium to its limits, creating an extensive body of work that keeps him, even after his death, one of the most influential figures in art photography. During his lifetime, Warhol helped another famous photographer, David LaChapelle, land his first assignment. Soon after, LaChapelle's photographs were being exhibited in renowned galleries and museums. Will McBride documented the political events of his time. McBride captured the key moments of post-war German history. For his life's work, he was awarded the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize of the German Photographic Society in 2004. As observers of everyday life, Nan Goldin and Martin Parr join the list of celebrated photographers. While Goldin's works offer intimate glimpses into the lives of her friends in New York, London or Berlin, Parr uses his photographs to portray and gently mock the life of the British middle class. Yousuf Karsh, on the other hand, created portraits of the elite of Hollywood and American society. Stars such as Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and activist Martin Luther King and President John F. Kennedy were among his portrait subjects.

Slim Aarons opened a window into the world of California high society. His motto: "I photograph attractive people doing attractive things." His photographs from the 1960s and 70s are more than significant documents of their time: in innovative formats, such as the LUMAS Lightbox, they let the glamour of a golden era shine anew.

Erich Lessing was one of the great chroniclers of the 20th century. With an unguarded, humanistic eye, he captured Europe's political and social upheavals – and gave them a lasting presence. His photographs became symbols of an era.

Berenice Abbott returned to New York from Paris, where she had assisted Man Ray and preserved the work of Eugène Atget – and found a city in transformation. With the series "Changing New York" she documented the metropolis's transformation between 1935 and 1939 in over 300 images, often from unusual perspectives, without staged effects.

Photography is often seen as a male domain. Yet female photographers have existed for as long as photography itself. Great names from the history of photography include celebrities such as Lee Miller and Diane Arbus or Cindy Sherman. But have you ever heard of Anna Atkins? She published the world's first photobook! As early as 1843, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions appeared, a collection of scientific illustrations. One of the most famous photographs of all time was taken by Dorothea Lange. Migrant Mother became a symbol of the Great Depression in the USA. In this way, female photographers shaped the very beginnings of photography and deserve an entry in the lexicon of its history.

Stefanie Schneider has been working since 1996 with expired Polaroid film, whose chemical decay colors each image unpredictably. In the Californian desert, she stages scenes between longing and the American dream for her series "29 Palms, CA". "I'm a perfectionist," she says, "but I perfect chance."

GABO, born in Hamburg in 1961, chose a pseudonym and a path away from the studio early on: her breakthrough came in 1986 with a photo series of Herbert Grönemeyer and a Stern magazine cover. Since then she has portrayed Yoko Ono, Angelina Jolie and Nina Hagen in natural settings, with an unerring feel for light and shadow.

Stephanie Kloss combines two areas of training into a visual language of her own: architecture in Berlin, photography under Thomas Struth and Candida Höfer in Karlsruhe. In her series "California Dreaming," the cool clarity of Richard Neutra's and John Lautner's Case Study houses meets a quiet human presence – California of the 1950s and 60s, reframed.

Beatrice Hug gained her first editorial experience at Vogue Germany and Elle, before working as a freelance art director in Paris from 1992 onward, realizing international fashion productions. This familiarity with color and composition flows into her abstract series "PULSE" and "SPHAERA": images of colored glass and tinted liquids, captured with a medium-format camera – abstract photographs with a wholly real origin.

Among the best-known portrait photographers are Edward Steichen, Cecil Beaton and Erwin Blumenfeld. Whether unnamed beauties or celebrities like Audrey Hepburn: as masters of portrait photography they play with virtuoso skill on shadow and light, casting their subjects in a whole new light.

Bert Stern achieved the impossible: capturing Marilyn Monroe in a single moment, in all her facets – as icon and as human being. With The Last Sitting he created one of the most intimate chapters in the history of photography. A search for beauty and truth, between grace and vulnerability – brought back to life in the world's first moving Multi-Phase editions.

British photographer Gavin Evans, born in Sunderland in 1964 and now based in Berlin, is considered one of the most distinguished portraitists of our time. A single forty-minute shoot with David Bowie in 1995 produced "The Session" – images that became icons and today hang in institutions including MoMA and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Willi Moegle stages porcelain and glass with sober precision. Through skillful lighting and a sparing arrangement, his objects take on a sculptural character. This reduced visual language pairs perfectly with an interior featuring Bauhaus artwork!. With an equally sober eye, Erich Salomon documented German society in the 1920s. His serious images became a model for future generations of photojournalists. In his honor, the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize has been awarded by the German Photographic Society since 1971. By far the best-known German photographers of the post-war era are Bernd and Hilla Becher. They founded the Düsseldorf School of Photography as a renowned master class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. Famous alumni include Andreas Gursky and Candida Höfer, among others. The continuation of the New Objectivity movement of the 1920s and 1930s shows itself in the detached, objectifying style that this German conceptual photography radiates. Berlin-based Robert Lebeck shows in his well-known photographs both the capital at the blue hour as well as figures such as Alfred Hitchcock and images of Romy Schneider.

With an incorruptible eye and a fine sense for the decisive moment, Robert Lebeck, himself a pioneer of photojournalism, captured history as it unfolded – always curious, always up close. His images distill a whole feeling for life – and his unmistakable view of the world, the moment, and the icons of our time.

Günter Rössler, born in Leipzig in 1926, was one of the defining photographers of East Germany. After training at the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts, he increasingly devoted himself to nude photography from the 1970s onward and initiated the first nude plein-air event in Höfgen in 1979. As a photographer for the fashion magazine "Sibylle," he also shaped the perception of body and beauty in East Germany for decades.

He became known as the singer and guitarist of Die Ärzte – his second passion is photography. Since a solo motorcycle trip from New Orleans to Rio de Janeiro in 1991, Farin Urlaub has been capturing the world with his camera, mostly on long journeys far from the stage lights. His photo book "Indien & Bhutan" (2007) shows his precise, understated eye for cultural detail.

Sabine Wild, born in Padua in 1962 and based in Berlin since 1985, discovered photography through her work for the German Federal Chamber of Architects. From urban views, she develops, through fine hatching, a visual language of her own rooted in geometric abstraction. In her latest series, "Cut & Woven," she cuts and weaves two identical photographs together by hand into a new, tactile image.