Magnum Photos Blog

Home port Hamburg. 1930 - 1966 

December 5, 2016 
by Herbert List 
Hamburg is the home town of Herbert List. The port city is the place where the first endeavors with his camera took place and his friendship to Bauhaus apprentice Andreas Feininger turned him into a dyed in the wool Rolleiflex user. The middle format with only 12 exposures per film played a key role for him in rather focussing on composition than speed while shooting. Supplementing his contemplative view of his early years with spontaneity was a process that gained momentum much later. He discovers the 35mm Leica in the fifties and with it the benefits of the smaller format. Postwar times, its demand for a more journalistic approach to photography and his collaboration with Magnum turn Herbert List into a story teller, who more and more thinks in image essays rather than single shots.

A current show at Flo Peters Gallery is tracing List's stylistic development with about 50 unseen vintage prints of the city of Hamburg from a time period of roughly 35 years. Between 1930 and 1966 his style had changed like the genre street photography in itself changed over time. But he made it happen without ever loosing his unmistakable handwriting.


05/12/2016 - 28/01/2017

Flo Peters Gallery
Pumpen 8
Chilehaus C
20095 Hamburg