Albert Renger-Patzsch(1897-1966) was born in Würzburg, Germany. He lived and and worked in Essen and Wamel, Germany.

German photographer Albert Ranger-Patzsch was a ground breaking figure in the New Objective  movement, which was made to engage with the world and people in it as much as possible.

Moving away form the ideals and subjects that are highly prized of a previous generation, Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) emerged as a trend in German art, architecture and literature in the 1920s. Applying this attitude to the field of photography, Renger-Patzsch adopted the camera’s ability to produce a direct visual recording of the world. ‘There must be an increase in the joy one takes in an object, and the photographer should be fully conscious of the splendid fidelity of reproduction made possible by his technique’, he wrote.

This selection reflects the range of subjects that Renger-Patzsch would always come back to throughout his career. It includes his early wildlife and botanical studies, images of traditional craftsmen, formal studies of mechanical equipment, commercial still lifes, and landscape and architectural studies. His images of the Ruhrregion, where he moved in 1928, document the industrialisation of the area in an extreme amount of  detail. All of his work demonstrates his continued interest in the camera’s capability to capture to the beauty and complexity of the modern worl