The World on the Upper Rhine - Photographs by Robert Häusser from the 1960s
22.09. - 12.11.2022
In cooperation with the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen - Forum Internationale Photographie and parallel to their exhibition¹ " Die Welt am Oberrhein - Fotografien von Robert Häusser aus den 1960er Jahren" (The World on the Upper Rhine - Photographs by Robert Häusser from the 1960s) Döbele Kunst Mannheim publishes 30 of the most beautiful motifs on this topic in a small edition of only 10 copies each.
The first presentation of this edition at Döbele Kunst Mannheim is on Thursday, September 22, 2022 from 18:00 to 22:00 in Leibnizstraße 26.
Already the Romans knew about the importance of the Rhine as an important trade route, which brought goods and culture from the Alps to the North.
As a national symbol, however, the Rhine developed especially in the late 18th and 19th centuries, in a time marked by industrialization and the associated change in living spaces. In the course of romanticization, the untouched nature of the Rhine led numerous artists to the river, who captured its beauty both on canvas and in photographs. Robert Häusser joins a long list of famous personalities, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the English poet Lord Byron, Heinrich Heine, Clemens Brentano or the great Romantic painter William Turner.
In 1995, Häusser became the first German photographer to receive what is probably the most important prize in photography, the Hasselblad Award, and has since been regarded as one of the few internationally renowned German photographers of the post-war period. His documentation of urban and rural life along the Upper Rhine was produced between 1961 and 1965 as a long-term project commissioned by the Braun publishing house in Karlsruhe. It not only reflects the economic and social changes in the region, but also testifies to Häusser's immense talent and the breadth of his work².
¹ This exhibition is part of the trinational project "The Rhine" of the Museums Network, in which 35 museums in Germany, France and Switzerland are participating.
² Volume 97 of the publications of REM Forum Internationale Photographie, with texts by Prof. Dr. Wilfried Rosendahl, Stephanie Herrmann and Prof. Dr. Claude Sui as well as 80 illustrations, documents the exhibition on 136 pages. It costs Euro 20,00.
Nünnerich-Asmus Verlag & Media, Oppenheim am Rhein, ISBN 978-3-96176-150-0.