Erich Retzlaff - Volksfotograf BOOK

Erich Retzlaff (1899-1993) is a name almost forgotten in the ever-swelling annals of the various histories of photography. Yet, in the early twentieth century Retzlaff was a prolific and celebrated photographer with a publication list of over seven major volumes solely between the two world wars. Indeed, his work was well known outside of his native Germany. In addition to a growing and acclaimed repertoire of black and white studies of workers and peasants, Retzlaff was one of the first German photographers to use the 'Agfacolor Neu' colour film introduced in October 1936. 'Agfacolor Neu' was a subtractive three-layer reversal film with a single chemical process that greatly simplified the taking of vivid colour images and meant that photographers could process their own films without undue difficulties. Along with contemporaries such as Herbert VoÇ?, Emil Grimm and Herbert Beyer, Retzlaffƒ??s work was reproduced in a special edition, Agfacolor, das farbige Lichtbild (1938). At best, Retzlaff has now become a footnote in all the varied histories of photography. Yet his work, I believe, merits further examination especially in relation to his use of colour, and in the hugely ambitious and comprehensive catalogue of the German working classes that he made over a twenty-year period. Taken in its entirety, Retzlaffƒ??s portfolio can be read as a narrative of an era that rejected uncertainty to become a celebration of the ordinary as an extraordinary thing. And Retzlaffƒ??s work was more than simply a crude bludgeon to hammer home a point about the idealised German race. By focussing on those ƒ??wholesome, average members of the laboring classesƒ??, I will argue that Retzlaffƒ??s work formed an integral part in a reawakening sense of place and identity during the dismal and ƒ??melancholicƒ?? years of post-war hubris. Ideologically useful his work might have been, but like the work of most social-documentary photographers of this significant period Retzlaffƒ??s photographs transcend those strictures. In this book I will examine Retzlaffƒ??s work from the perspective of a photographer illustrating the ƒ??corporateƒ?? body of the German Nation, whilst exploring the use of his attempt at ƒ??heightened realismƒ?? through the innovative use of colour and its relationship to the socio-political climate within which he worked.This catalogue book publication (which accompanies an exhibition of the same name), has been originated in order to begin to address the neglect of the work of a highly skilled and aesthetically gifted German photographer Erich Retzlaff (1899-1993) whose beautifully crafted, visually engaging, historically significant photographs are also ideological documents. With a forward by internationally acclaimed German scholar Professor Dr. Rolf Sachsse and text by the author, this illustrated publication is the first in a series of planned explorations into neglected, ignored or forgotten German photographers working within the context of National Socialist ideology