Peter Loewy
Drawings | An Exhibition with Photographic Portraits
09 Feb - 11 Apr 2010
Over the past fifteen years, the Frankfurt-based photographer Peter Loewy (*1951) has gained prominence with a number of powerful series of works. His first book of photographs, »Jüdisches« (Jewish), was published in 1996, showing details taken from inside the family homes of both famous and unknown Jewish families in Frankfurt. This was followed by the volume »Lèche-vitrine«, as well as series on the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt and intimate pictures of the working environment of internationally acclaimed artists (»Private Collection«).
Loewy's photographs of drawings by well and lesser-known artists from centuries past form a new cycle that is to be exhibited for the first time in the showcase passage at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München in the Pinakothek der Moderne.
Quite by chance the photographer came across a book on ethnography and was fascinated by the »photographic« accuracy, use of perspective and shading of drawings of people from the most varied of cultures, depicted in their respective local dress. He switched off the automatic focus option, zoomed in so closely that only a detail could be seen, and selected a filter and distance that went against any standard logic until he achieved a rich blurred image. »I was thrilled«, writes Loewy. »On my display I had a picture that was out of focus, not a drawing. I felt as if I had brought the person back to life - that's how full of himself a photographer can be compared to a draughtsman. - As a lover of drawings I felt I had to rummage through the history of art as well, or rather masses of books, and revive people from across the centuries in the form of photos. That's how a mass of portraits of famous and unknown people came about. I also produced a collection of famous and unknown artists, too, who I enshrouded in a misty blurredness.«
Loewy's photographs of drawings by well and lesser-known artists from centuries past form a new cycle that is to be exhibited for the first time in the showcase passage at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München in the Pinakothek der Moderne.
Quite by chance the photographer came across a book on ethnography and was fascinated by the »photographic« accuracy, use of perspective and shading of drawings of people from the most varied of cultures, depicted in their respective local dress. He switched off the automatic focus option, zoomed in so closely that only a detail could be seen, and selected a filter and distance that went against any standard logic until he achieved a rich blurred image. »I was thrilled«, writes Loewy. »On my display I had a picture that was out of focus, not a drawing. I felt as if I had brought the person back to life - that's how full of himself a photographer can be compared to a draughtsman. - As a lover of drawings I felt I had to rummage through the history of art as well, or rather masses of books, and revive people from across the centuries in the form of photos. That's how a mass of portraits of famous and unknown people came about. I also produced a collection of famous and unknown artists, too, who I enshrouded in a misty blurredness.«